August 03, 2015
Chris Szagola/AP
Jordan Matthews had 77 catches for 1478 yards and 26 touchdowns (estimated) at Eagles training camp practice today.
Day two of Eagles training camp is in the books. After a mellow first day at the NovaCare Complex, action picked up a bit today, and the offense looked a lot more crisp than it did on Sunday.
• Jordan Matthews destroyed today. He had catch after catch after catch, working against an assortment of Brandon Boykin replacements in the slot. Is he just dominating because he was going up against inexperienced competition, or because he's just really good? Probably a mix of the two, but he was the best player on the field today. I'm of the opinion Matthews is going to have a big season. He's underrated both nationally and locally. Hope I'm not overdoing it here, but Matthews has star potential.
• Staying on the wide receiver front, Josh Huff had a number of catches today as well, and made a nice leaping grab for the second straight day. Obviously, it's early, but he's been more active this training camp than he was a year ago.
• I don't think G.J. Kinne has much of a chance of making the team, but I will say this: the dude is an athlete. On one play, he made a catch in stride near the flat, and when he turned to run upfield there was a defender in his face. Without hesitation he made a really nice outside spin move and then turned it up. Impressive. He has also displayed very good hands so far.
• I thought the quarterbacks had rough days yesterday. Sloppy. Or rusty, maybe. They were much, much better today, as a whole. Sam Bradford was very accurate, and had two deep balls that should have been caught but were dropped.
• I wouldn't make much of DeMarco Murray's lack of reps yesterday. The guy had 497 touches a year ago. There's no question as to what his abilities are, and it's not as if the Eagles' offense is some kind of massively complicated scheme. Keep him fresh.
• The running backs have a new inside zone read drill. Keep your eye on the guy with the middle tackling dummy, who chooses and communicates which running lane will open up for the running back. Huge job.
The drill is designed to improve vision.
I like this drill for teaching vision https://t.co/tm4L6gLJ0t
— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) August 3, 2015
• As noted above, Jordan Matthews picked on slot corners all day. However, slot corner isn't the only spot where the Eagles are going to need to find a replacement for Brandon Boykin's talents. Boykin is among the best gunners in the league on the punt team, and the Birds are going to have to find a guy who can down punts inside the 10 like Boykin used to. I could list all the guys the Eagles had working as gunners today, but it would be a list of about 20 corners, safeties, and wide receivers. Let's just say there were a lot of them getting looks.
• Players who got punt return reps today: Darren Sproles, Nelson Agholor, Josh Huff, Jordan Matthews, Miles Austin, and Kenjon Barner. Barner had a muff today.
• Pass breakups are a big deal to the Eagles coaching staff, so it's something I'll be noting with regularity during my training camp notes. Players who had breakups that I saw today: Jerome Couplin, Denzel Rice, Randall Evans. No picks today.
• Yesterday, we noted that Matt Tobin got reps with the ones at RG, and predicted that it would be someone new today. Sure enough, it was Andrew Gardner. Who's up tomorrow?
• We note this every year, but will do so just as a reminder. Brent Celek is the emergency long snapper. His butt is pictured below.
As a receiver, Celek had two drops today.
• Not pictured above is Donnie Jones. He hit some bombs today. On punts I timed for hang time, Donnie had the following times: 4.50, 4.96, 4.53, 5.14, 4.86, 5.11. Any time over five seconds is excellent. Because Donnie J'owns.
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