August 14, 2017
On Monday, the Philadelphia Eagles conducted their final full training camp practice this offseason, with a "10/10/10" session scheduled for Tuesday, along with joint practices next week with the Miami Dolphins. Practice notes will be coming to an end soon, so soak them in.
• The highlight of the day on Monday was watching Malcolm Jenkins and Nelson Agholor get chippy in a one-on-one red zone drill. Previously, Jenkins always tried to get matched up against Jordan Matthews, who was the best slot receiver on the team. In a piece from Tim McManus from ESPN, Jenkins had to find himself "a new Jordan Matthews."
"From a personal standpoint, basically every time I do one-on-ones it's against Jordan Matthews," Jenkins explained. "If I stay after to do releases with a receiver, it's going to be Jordan Matthews. So for me, even in my daily preparation, I now have got to find a new Jordan Matthews."
It would appear that Jenkins' "new Jordan Matthews" is Agholor, though maybe not as friendly a competition as it was with 81. There were a series of three plays that were entertaining as hell to watch.
Jenkins is awesome.
• Agholor had a good day, by the way. He made a number of nice catches, as did Marcus Johnson and even Shelton Gibson.
• Ronald Darby can play. He picked off Carson Wentz in the end zone during the one-on-one red zone drills on a fade to the much taller Mack Hollins. More impressively, he broke on a slant route intended for Torrey Smith and got a hand on the ball for a pass breakup. His break on the football once he diagnoses routes is very impressive. His speed is obvious.
• For the third straight day, Wentz was not sharp, or at least not as good as he's been the rest of camp. I'm not sure if he has the Jordan Matthews blues, but he's been noticeably worse since the trade was announced. It's probably just a coincidence. I think. Maybe.
• In his press conference after the Matthews trade, Doug Pederson explained that the players need to stop their whining.
"Well, I'm going to tell you this: I lean back on my career and the times that I had and the things, the situations and the people that I see," Pederson said. "Listen, it's decisions you got to make that are tough for the organization, for the individuals involved. But listen, it's like anything that we do in life – the next person steps up and here we go.
"We can sit and have poor attitudes and all that, but at the same time we're happy for both parties, and we're moving forward. That's business as usual."
Yeesh.
• Nick Foles was back at practice today after missing a couple weeks with arm soreness. He was limited, as he did not participate in team drills. He is not expected to play in the Eagles' second preseason game against the Buffalo Bills on Thursday.
In explaining his arm soreness, the 28-year old Foles sounded a lot like a 38-year old relief pitcher trying to extend his career.
"After practice right now, I'll go get treatment, continue to do arm exercises, and then later today we'll do some other things to recover it," he said. "I think it'll be wise for me to do that for the rest of my career so I don't deal with this, and in turn it'll give me a fresh arm every single day in practice."
• The Eagles' offense showed a number of three tight end sets today. A season ago, they lined up with three tight ends on 126 out of 1080 snaps, or 11.7 percent. On a team with three good tight ends and perhaps the worst wide receiving corps in the NFL, I would have expected that percentage to be higher.
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