Eagles training camp notes: Stealing a drill, high praise for Quinyon and more originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Eagles have been running a new drill in training camp this year and it has a pretty cool origin story.
It came from Tuscaloosa.
“Actually, we were talking about contested catches,” head coach Nick Sirianni said this week. “DeVonta Smith and I were talking about contested catches, and he brought up a drill that they used to do at Alabama and that was the drill. Some of our Alabama guys had some old tape of it. I was able to talk to a couple coaches that had done that. And so, it started as a contested catch drill that really is a good competitive drill to make an open field tackle.”
The drill features two defensive backs and one receiver. The first DB covers the receiver as the ball comes in, which is the contested catch part of the drill. The other DB has to hit a cone mark and then come downhill and square up for a tackle.
It’s just yet another drill to hammer home fundamentals. As you’d expect, this became Sirianni’s longest answer during his press conference earlier in the week. He loves to talk about fundamentals.
“Whether it’s on the sideline, whether it’s an angle tackle out in space, we want to do ordinary better than anybody else because those are the things that end up winning football games,” he said. “I think a lot of people can get enthralled by, ‘Look at this, how this play’s drawn up and that play’s drawn up.’ That’s very important, but at the end of the day, whether it’s my son’s football team, it’s a high school team, whether it’s a college team, winning football happens with teams that tackle better, the teams that take care of the football better, the teams that block better, the teams that take the football way better, the teams that block destruct better. We focus on doing the ordinary better.”
Praise for Quinyon Mitchell
Through the first five days of training camp, Quinyon Mitchell has been one of the best players on the field and he’s pretty much the only cornerback who can compete with A.J. Brown.
Mitchell got the first interception of training camp on Day 4 when he picked off an underthrown Jalen Hurts pass to Brown down the right sideline. That’s notable because while Mitchell ended up picking off two passes in the playoffs, he didn’t have a single interception in the regular season as a rookie. If there was a deficiency in Mitchell’s game last year, it was probably his hands.
On Tuesday, Vic Fangio was asked if a player can improve their ball skills and his answer was notable:
“Yeah, I think it can improve obviously with work and I think the work he’s put in has made it. He has improved. He had a nice interception yesterday, which I don’t know if he [would have made it] last year. But ball skills are a natural thing, too, so the improvement you can make is incremental. But any improvement he can make, he’ll make because he’ll work at it.”
That’s high praise from a longtime no-BS coordinator like Fangio.
Don’t sleep on Trot
The Eagles used their first-round pick in April on linebacker Jihaad Campbell and he’s off to a great start in his rookie training camp. It feels almost inevitable that he’ll eventually end up as the starter next to Zack Baun in Week 1.
But Jeremiah Trotter Jr. isn’t going down without a fight.
Through five practices, Trotter has worked with the first-team defense next to Baun and then next to Campbell on Day 5 when Baun was out with a back contusion. And it’s clear that the 2024 fifth-round pick from Clemson has improved a ton.
“I feel a little more comfortable,” Trotter said. “I know what it’s supposed to be like. I had a year in this system so I know how the coaches want it to look, how we’re supposed to play the defense. I feel like I’m playing out there a lot faster. I know where to be, I know what to expect.”
Even if Trotter isn’t a starter this year, having him on the roster will help with depth at the position, especially because Nakobe Dean is still recovering from a torn patellar tendon that he suffered in the playoffs. Either way, Trotter will continue to be a special teams staple but he’s showing in his second training camp that he can play on defense too.
We’ll see how this competition plays out over the next few weeks but it’s been encouraging that Trotter has played this well early.
“Just making sure I’m showing the coaches that I know what I gotta do,” he said. “Show them that they can trust me. I can go out there and make plays.”
A well-deserved honor
After practice on Tuesday, Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland was given his plaque as the winner of the PFWA’s Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman Award for lifetime achievement as an assistant coach in the NFL.
It was a cool moment that included an impromptu speech from the legendary coach.
While the Chip Kelly Era in Eagles football never quite worked out the way the franchise hoped, he did bring Stoutland to Philadelphia back in 2013. And over a decade later, not only is Stoutland a legend in Philly but he’s going to go down as one of the greatest assistant coaches in NFL history.
Staying on the sideline
In his first year as offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo this week said he will call offensive plays from the sideline instead of moving up to the coaching booth.
Patullo he didn’t even think about going upstairs.
“No, because I’ve been on the field for so long and when I called in New York into Fitz [Ryan Fitzpatrick] and I did a lot of that kind of stuff, I was on the field,” Patullo said. “I’m kind of used to it, so I have no problem doing it. And I like the interaction with the quarterback. I’ve kind of been in that mode the last four years here, so I’ve kind of pretty much always done that.”
Dealing with the heat
The Eagles moved up practice one hour on Tuesday because of excessive heat … but don’t talk about that with the Eagles’ defensive coordinator.
“It’s not hot today,” said Fangio, wearing an outfit of full sweats. “That’s a mindset. We’re going to play some hot games in September and if you cave to a hot day in training camp, we’re in trouble.”
Fangio has a point. The Eagles again play the Buccaneers in Tampa in September and that will likely be another brutal game in the heat. It wasn’t easy to get through that one in 2024.
By the time the Eagles wrapped up their nearly 2-hour practice on Tuesday, temperatures were well into the 90s and it felt even hotter.
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” Hurts said. “I think these last two days have been very challenging from a heat standpoint. So everybody collectively, as a group, just continue to push through those things. Control what you can. I think this was a good test and measure of where we are right now and where we desire to go.”
from NFL News, Scores, Fantasy Games and Highlights 2020 | Yahoo Sports https://ift.tt/w3Cl6bM
No comments:
Post a Comment