Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots will practice together

The Eagles will play the New England Patriots as part of their preseason schedule on August 9th. However, for the first time since 1998, they will also hold joint practices with the Patriots on August 6 and 7th.

Joint practices are nothing new around the league, but it's not something Andy Reid ever did. Given Chip Kelly and Bill Belichick's previous relationship and the fact that they're going to run somewhat similar systems, it does make sense for the teams to work against one another in practice.

Chip Kelly said today that it was Belichick who approached him about having the joint practices.

The Patriots had great success with an uptempo, no huddle offense based in large part on what Kelly did at Oregon. In fact, Bill Belichick famously invited Kelly to Patriots camp to consult with him on the offense.

As Belichick has borrowed from Kelly, the exchange looks to be going the other way as well with Kelly looking to feature the multiple TE sets the Pats have been so successful with.

Bob Grotz pointed out that the last practice the Eagles held with another team was back in 1998 when the Bills visited them at Lehigh.