It’s a busy time in the Eagles’ summer.
They’re smack-dab in the middle of back-to-back-to-back training camp practices for the first time all training camp and the first preseason game is just a few days away.
So before any of this gets lost, it’s time to clean out the notebook with a few great nuggets:
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Nolan Smith earns high praise
It probably shouldn’t be much of a surprise that rookie first-round pick Nolan Smith has flashed so far in training camp. And it seems likely that he’s going to become quite a fan favorite in Philadelphia.
Smith already seems to be earning some attention and praise from his new teammates, including the Eagles’ All-Pro right tackle.
“I’m not comparing him to this guy, but you see Micah Parsons,” Lane Johnson said, “a guy that has tremendous speed, was undersized, was at linebacker and then they put him on the line of scrimmage and you see what he’s doing now. A guy with that type of quickness, that type of burst is a threat every time he’s on the ball because he can get a tackle turned. And once he does that, he can kind of have his way. You can never have enough explosive guys on the edge. Everybody has their uniqueness.
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“[Smith] as a young guy, as he develops and gets stronger and he can have a good power game and set up everything off of that, it’s going to be tough to stop him. What I like about Nolan is he’s a sponge, man. He’s always asking questions, he’s always a positive kid too. He reminds me a lot of [Brandon Graham] with just the positivity everyday and what he brings. I think the sky’s the limit for him. He’s just scratching the surface with what he’s going to be.”
It’s worth noting that Smith has beaten several offensive linemen this camp but Johnson has handled him pretty routinely when they’ve faced off. The good news for Smith is that he won’t have to see Johnson on Sundays.
Is DeVonta even human?
When the Eagles released a video of DeVonta Smith destroying a ladder drill last week, it went viral because it looked like someone sped up the tape.
Just take a look:
“For me, ladders … that’s the way to get loose and things like that,” Smith said on Sunday. “Get your feet going and things. As a receiver, that’s what it’s all about, the hands and the feet. Myself being a smaller guy, it’s more of my feet than my hands. Gotta make sure that I have my feet well intact to go out there and do the things I need to do.”
Smith has had the reputation as a master route runner dating back to his days at Alabama and so much of his game begins with his quick feet.
That viral video isn’t a one-off. We see this from Smith every day at practice. It’s worth noting that he takes every drill seriously.
“You kind of just do the drills and that’s that and as you go, you get better and better,” Smith said. “If you’re not getting better doing the drill, then maybe you need to stop doing it and find another way to get better at doing footwork, things like that. Not all footwork drills are easy. There’s some that I can do, there’s some that I can’t do. The ones that I can’t do, I just stay away from them and find another way to work on my footwork.”
Typically, the best players go first during individual drills. For instance, A.J. Brown is the line-leader for the Eagles’ receivers. But Smith always goes last. When asked about this earlier this week, Smith said he likes that position because he gets to see what everyone else does right and wrong so he can get the best rep possible.
Sirianni’s philosophy on tough coaching
Last Friday, the headline coming out of Eagles practice wasn’t about a play or a quote. It was seeing head coach Nick Sirianni screaming at Jalen Hurts after the star quarterback screwed up time management in a 2-minute drill.
A few minutes later, Hurts punished himself with pushups on the sideline.
Sirianni was asked about this sequence a few days later.
“Shoot, when you can coach your best player the hardest, that's good for everybody,” he said. “All that's important is that you continue to get better at every different spot. So Jalen, you know, it's evident by who he is as a person. He craves and wants to be better at all times. I remember when I first got here, he was like, ‘Man, just coach me hard.’”
And Sirianni has certainly done that in their time together.
But Sirianni also wanted to point out that it’s just as important when he praises his players for doing something well.
“My favorite type of accountability is when you're like, ‘That's exactly the way it's supposed to look,’” he said. “Then you're confirming exactly what you want. Our job as coaches is to make sure the job description is very clear, and there is no better form of accountability than, ‘Hey, great job. What a play.’ I have sure been doing a lot of that with Jalen this training camp.”
Put him on offense?
About halfway through offensive coordinator Brian Johnson’s press conference on Tuesday, veteran cornerback Darius Slay sneaked into the media tent and politely interrupted.
Slay asked Johnson to put him on offense and the way Johnson shrugged it off, you could tell it wasn’t the first time.
“Put you at receiver? Come on, let’s go,” Johnson said with a smile, before quickly turning his attention back to the presser.
Back in 2021, Slay successfully lobbied to play on offense and earned a grand total of two snaps. Slay didn’t play at all on offense last year, but the Eagles did have a designed QB sneak with Fletcher Cox on the field, although it never ran in a game.
Anyone else who lobbies for touches?
“There's always Slay, there's always Fletch,” Johnson said. “Defensively, I don't know. We've got some of these young guys, Jordan Davis, and I know Jalen Carter played some fullback at Georgia, too, so we'll see. There are always some chances of some creativity.”
On Sunday, the Eagles signed linebacker Myles Jack, who also played running back early in his career at UCLA. In fact, Jack was the Pac-12 Offensive and Defensive Freshman of the Year in 2013. So maybe it won’t take long for Jack to start bugging Johnson too
Although, for now, Jack does have a new defensive scheme to learn.
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