I just got back from Lehigh and watching the morning practice and figured that I'd share some quick impressions.
First, if you plan on going up to camp... tack one hour onto any amount of time you've allotted to get up there. The traffic was horrendous. The Eagles announced that 18,000 people showed up for the morning session, that's most since the 20k that showed up on TO's first day at Lehigh.
Now to practice... It was blistering hot with absolutely no breeze and I could definetly see that several of the players were feeling it. Anyone who wasn't 100% fit and in shape is sure going to be after this camp.
I really like what I saw from rookie TE Brent Celek. He got alot of snaps with LJ on the sideline and really impressed. He certainly doesn't have LJ's speed, but he gets off the block well, finds seams, and does a good job catching the ball away from his body. Plus, he's a noticably big figure out there. He seemed to tower over the Eagles LBs and DBs that covered him. I think he could be a more athletic Chad Lewis, which wouldn't be so bad.
Kevin Kolb spends most of his time when he's not taking snaps standing next to Kelly Holcomb and chatting him up.
Max Jean-Gilles got into his second fight in as many days... unfortunately I didn't see it! He went at it with LaJuan Ramsey. Frankly, I like seeing that fire from MJG.
Sean Considine actually does look noticeably bigger this year. No one is ever going to mistake him for a Roy Williams or Sean Taylor in terms of size, but he's definitely not as slight as he was last year.
It's just funny watching Jeremy Bloom out there. He honestly looks like a little kid out there next to the rest of the team. That said, he's been getting open and he gave max effort everytime I saw him on the field. I got in a bit late thanks to the traffic, but apparently Bloom has made some nice plays early. There's quite a buzz around him. Plus, did you guys know he used to be an Olympic skiier and model?!!?11 OMG!
Ryan Moats continues to be an enigma. He looked very fast and very shifty whenever he got the ball, but on a longer run in a non tackling drill he was stripped of the ball. You can't hope to make it in the NFL if you can't hold onto the ball... especially if you weren't even being tackled.
Finally, no one got bigger cheers today than punter Saverio Rocca. He was routinely booting 60-70 yard punts with staggering amounts of hang time. Punting from around the 15 he was backing Bloom up to the goal line and the coverage team was just about there when the ball was arriving. Even when he doesn't boot 60+ yards, he hits towering kicks. I wish I had a stop watch, because the hang time on these things was unreal. There was no doubt that he outshined Dirk Johnson today, who actually shanked a couple punts badly.