Bleeding Green Nation
Stock report from OTAs and mandatory minicamp.
The Philadelphia Eagles officially wrapped up their spring offseason workout program last week. Now let’s take a look at the winners, losers, and I don’t knows that stood out from three media-attended practices (two days of voluntary OTAs and one mandatory minicamp session).
Disclaimer: These were non-contact drills (no pads) and three practices is a pretty small sample size. There’s still plenty of time for players to change their outlook — for better or worse — over the course of training camp and preseason games.
The reigning Super Bowl MVP turned in a strong spring. Hurts was accurate and decisive; he had very few incompletions and he didn’t take too many “sacks.” Getting rid of the ball quickly mostly resulted in shorter completions, though he did have one highlight deep completion for a touchdown. Hurts seems to be getting better in practice settings from where he was earlier in his career. He rarely — if ever — puts the ball in harm’s way.
The Eagles clearly want DeJean on the field for 100% of their defensive snaps. This spring, he was the starting outside cornerback opposite from Quinyon Mitchell in Philly’s base defense. Vic Fangio even talked about him potentially playing safety, though he took zero snaps there during media-attendance practices. The expectation here is that DeJean will mostly serve as the Eagles’ nickel cornerback. And when he’s not playing in the slot, he’ll still be on the field in some other capacity.
Ringo and Adoree’ Jackson rotated starting cornerback reps in the Eagles’ nickel defense. Of the two, Ringo shone more brightly. The third-year defender broke up multiple passes and looked pretty sticky in coverage. Ringo also seems to be emerging as a leader in his position room considering he led the huddle before a DB drill. There’s still going to be a training camp battle but Ringo appears to be the front-runner.
As QB3 over the past two years, McKee’s practice reps were pretty limited. And he was often throwing to players who wouldn’t even make the roster. Now elevated to QB2, McKee benefits from more practice time and better targets to work with. McKee took advantage of his upgraded situation this spring by looking pretty good for backup quarterback standards. As was the case with Hurts, McKee rarely threw incompletions or put the ball in harm’s way.
At the very least, McCord showed that he’s not flat out unplayable like previous Eagles rookie quarterbacks (see: Clayton Thorson, Carson Strong). Even better, McCord completed some difficult throws into traffic that make one believe he might be able to develop into a backup quarterback. We’ll see how the preseason games go but McCord is currently in good position to beat out Dorian Thompson-Robinson for the QB3 role.
Shipley saw a lot of targets during spring...
