August 01, 2022
Day 4 of Philadelphia Eagles 2022 training camp is in the books. The team was in shells and shorts (helmets and shoulder pads), as the full pads still haven't come on just yet. (They will tomorrow, per Nick Sirianni.) Still, there was plenty of noteworthy action.
• I thought Jalen Hurts had a decent day. There were no real splash throws, but he was mostly accurate in the shorter areas of the field, completing most of his passes. But beyond the low number of passes that hit the ground, I also thought he put his receivers in a position to get yards after the catch. For example, he hit Boston Scott on a Texas route in stride, leading to a long gain.
Hurts wasn't perfect. He did miss Dallas Goedert on an underthrown pass down the left side of the field, but all in all a solid day getting better in a deficient area of his game
Hurts verdict: Stock up. 📈
• We had our first set of OL-DL 1-on-1's today. My biggest takeaways from that session:
Jordan Davis is a beast. He did not face off against any starters, but he emphatically won all but one of his reps. He mostly worked his bull rush, pushing interior linemen back into pocket against their will. If he's not personally sacking the quarterback often in real games, he can still be a major factor in the pass rush even if does little more than shrink the pocket and close off lanes that quarterbacks would otherwise be able step up into to throw.
But beyond the bull rush, he also showed off his impressive agility on a swim move that left Bill Dunkle standing in quicksand. Yes, the rep was against a rookie UDFA with the name of an insurance salesman, but the display of athleticism from the 340-pounder was not normal.
The one player who had a good rep against Davis was rookie center Cam Jurgens, who stood up to Davis' bull rush. Jurgens is undersized at 6'3, 303, but he looked stout not only against Davis, but other interior linemen as well. It took Jason Kelce years to adjust to bull rushes against bigger interior linemen, but Jurgens is off to an encouraging start.
Brandon Graham does not look hampered at all by his Achilles injury. He won his reps today with ease, though he was working against second-stringers. I failed to mention during my Day 3 practice notes that BG has a pair of sacks in team drills.
The first-team offensive line had a clean sweep against the first-team defensive line, in my opinion:
• In the Eagles' loss to the Chargers last season, the Eagles showed a lot of 5-1-5 looks, with the front five all rushing the passer. They were not effective, particularly when the edge rushers were Genard Avery and Derek Barnett.
That package should be much more intimidating in 2022 with Reddick and Sweat on the edge, and take your pick of Hargrave, Graham, Cox, Davis, and Williams on the interior.
• Gardner Minshew hasn't been stellar the first four practices of camp. He was picked twice today. Shaun Bradley victimized Minshew on a short throw over the middle that he had to go down low to get. And then later, Darius Slay broke up a pass that shot up in the air and was hauled in by Marcus Epps.
• Another day, another strong practice from Miles Sanders. He's been a lightning rod for negative attention so far this camp, but on the field he looks explosive. Again, the team isn't practicing in full pads yet, but Sanders had about a half dozen impressive runs today, just based on how he's moving.
• I like what I have seen so far from undrafted rookie safety Reed Blankenship. He seems to know where he should be, and today he knifed through the line for a TFL.
• Last year Quez Watkins said that he was the fastest player on the team. He was asked Monday if he still is, or if any of the new guys are coming for that title. He responded, "I'm the fastest player in the NFL."
• Embattled third-year receiver Jalen Reagor responded on Twitter to a negative practice note about him. Now deleted, the tweet said, "Bro y’all gotta stop this cap ass shit" in response to a note from NBC's John Clark that Reagor got outmuscled on a play, leading to a drop.
"Can somebody get him off of social media so I can trade him, please?"
- Howie Roseman, probably
In my experience, when a player claps back at a reporter on Twitter, the overwhelming response toward the reporter is, "Ohhhhhh snap, you got owned," accompanied by some meme, no matter how wrong the player usually is. In this case... nope. And that's when you know the player has pretty much lost support from the fan base.
Reagor hasn't been obviously bad in camp so far, but he's not helping his cause by searching his name on social media.
• Rookie tight end Grant Calcaterra was out today with a hamstring injury. He has had a nice start to camp, pre-injury. Zach Pascal remained out with his food poisoning illness.
• Throughout training camp, I'll have some occasional one-on-one interviews with other Eagles beat writers while the players are stretching and doing other boring stuff. We don't have a new edition today, but you can catch up on those and some practice notes episodes below. Oh, and here's the iTunes link. Review, subscribe, etc.
Within those beat writer interviews, I'm asking each writer four different questions:
The predictions so far:
| Writer | Record | Playoffs | Playoff wins? | Hurts in 2023? |
| 7/27: Eliot Shorr-Parks, WIP | 10-7 | Yes | None | Yes |
| 7/29: Jeff McLane, Inquirer | 10-7 | Yes | None | No |
| 7/30: Bo Wulf, The Athletic | 11-6 | Yes | One win, over the Vikings | Yes |
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