Eagles News: Philadelphia has been showing the most interest in Courtland Sutton

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Sutton feeling the love from Eagles with Bears next on workout schedule - NFL.com
The Eagles are the NFL club that’s given Courtland Sutton the most attention to this point in the 2018 NFL Draft process, and he believes he’d be a smooth fit with the Super Bowl champions. Philadelphia met privately with Sutton prior to SMU’s pro day workout last month, and Sutton returned from a top-30 visit to the Eagles -- his first visit to any club -- earlier this week. ”I think the Eagles like me a lot -- I really like the coaching staff, I really like the culture there. I think they’ll only continue to rise,” Sutton said. Sutton’s trip to Philadelphia included dinner Tuesday night with Eagles receivers coach Gunter Brewer, followed by a whirlwind of meetings Wednesday with head coach Doug Pederson and other members of the coaching staff, along with various other Eagles staffers. For the second time -- the pro day meeting was the first -- the club put Sutton on the whiteboard to assess his understanding of the game. Sutton, for his part, is well aware that if the Eagles were to draft him, he’d be joining a potent unit.

NFL Draft 2018: What the Eagles SHOULD do versus what they WILL do - BGN
The newest edition of BGN Radio is here! (Episode #310). In this episode, we talk about what the Eagles’ draft plans, our draft preferences, Philadelphia’s interest in Derrius Guice, the preseason schedule (seriously), an update on Brandon Graham’s contract situation, and more.

Eagles 2018 NFL Draft preview: Offensive tackle - PhillyVoice
O’Neill is a local kid from Salesianum School in Wilmington, DE, who enrolled at Pitt as a tight end before moving to RT, where he started the last two years. He is now playing LT in 2017. Under Doug Pederson, the Eagles have prioritized versatility from their offensive linemen, and have embraced the long-term potential of tight ends converted to tackle, as evidenced by Dillon Gordon, who the team was very high on at one time, but did not improve enough from 2016 to 2017 to make the team. O’Neill is so athletic and versatile, in fact, that Pitt has found ways to get the ball in his hands from his tackle spot. Here’s a weird throwback lateral to O’Neill that went for a touchdown.

Dez? - Iggles Blitz
While Brewer might be able to help with Dez, the Eagles should say “No thank you”. The 2017 team had great chemistry. I cannot see how the addition of Bryant would be good for chemistry. Eagles skill players were great last year at putting the success of the team ahead of their personal production. Dez is used to being a number one receiver and having the ball fed to him. Just as importantly, Dez just isn’t the same player he was. From 2012-2014, Dez caught 41 TDs. He was so big and physical that even when he was covered, he was open. The Eagles have a good trio of veteran receivers in Alshon Jeffery, Mike Wallace and Nelson Agholor. They have young guys they like in Mack Hollins and Shelton Gibson. Dez just doesn’t make sense for the Eagles.

Friday the 13th: stats that should strike fear in any opposing coaching staff - PFF
The Super Bowl Champions’ defensive line was a truly dominant force in 2017, and their ability to generate pressure on the quarterback without even having to blitz was unmatched. Throughout the 2017 season, the Eagles managed to generate pressure on 41 percent of their pass-defense snaps, which was by far the highest rate among teams. This offseason, the Eagles managed to retain all-but-two of their defensive linemen, and replaced the departing Vinny Curry with none other than former-Seahawk Michael Bennett, who ended the 2017 season with a whopping 70 quarterback pressures, which was tied for the seventh-most among 4-3 defensive ends last year. They also brought in Haloti Ngata to replace Beau Allen, who left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You thought the Eagles defensive line was good last year? The addition of Bennett arguably makes them even better, which in itself is a scary thought.

Projections for the 2018 draft’s top running backs - ESPN In$ider
Aside from Barkley, Rashaad Penny may be the most intriguing prospect in this year’s draft from a BackCAST perspective. Penny averaged a phenomenal adjusted 7.37 yards per attempt, which is the second highest score all time in BackCAST’s database. Penny also has a good size-speed combination -- he is a big back at 222 pounds, but he has the speed of a running back 20 pounds lighter (4.46-second 40-yard dash). Penny’s projection takes a big hit, however, because his workload was comparatively light. In fact, he has the largest disparity between adjusted yards per attempt and college workload in BackCAST’s dataset. Until his senior year, Penny was stuck behind other running backs on the depth chart; most notably, current Philadelphia Eagles running back Donnel Pumphrey. There is some evidence that San Diego State’s coaches may have simply been mistaken about who was the better running back. Every year he played, Penny beat every other running back on the roster in yards per attempt. In particular, he averaged over a yard per carry more than Pumphrey as a junior. In fact, if you follow the running back rotation at San Diego State closely, it appears that the coaches gave a lot of weight to experience (San Diego State also diverted carries to senior running back Christian Price during Penny’s sophomore year). If that is the case, then Penny may be much more talented than his college workload suggests.

Eagles 2018 NFL Draft Big Board: Leighton Vander Esch tops 13 ranked prospects - CBS Sports
Wide receiver isn’t a pressing need with a group starring Wallace, Alshon Jeffery and slot breakout Nelson Agholor. But the latter will be a free agent after 2018 and Wallace figures to be a one- or two-year rental at most, so the Eagles could conceivably enter 2019 with just Jeffery from that top three. Mack Hollins is waiting in the wings, but even if he emerges, it’s not like Philly couldn’t use an extra set of hands, let alone an explosive punt returner. Moore is a local kid, has caught the Eagles’ eye, and he’s built for the city -- a rock-solid tackle-shedder who could be a target machine down the road.

Inside A Father’s Quest To Understand His Son’s Life With Autism - PE.com
Bill Tyrrell was inspired when the Eagles unveiled the Eagles Autism Challenge on September 15. His 4-year-old son, Will, is on the spectrum and stands to benefit from the money raised by the inaugural cycling and running event happening on May 19. Tyrrell and his wife, Leah, have been able to provide their son with the services he needs but other families aren’t as fortunate. ”We took him for speech therapy at CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). It was costly, but it was important that he gets these extra services. You go all in. You’re going to give your kid everything you can. We try to give him all the resources we can because this is such an impressionable time,” Tyrrell said. Tyrrell felt the urge to do more to help other children who face the same challenges as his son. He immediately registered and his Team IronWill has raised over $7,000 (as of today) for the Eagles Autism Challenge.

Eagles Q&A with Joe Banner: Pederson’s role in personnel, draft visits and grading prospects - The Athletic
It starts with anticipating them. I bet you anything that Doug has been on the phone with coaches that have been in this situation to find out what he can learn from their experiences. It’s greatly aided by getting your team leaders on the same page with you and letting them carry the ball for this as much as anybody. So [Carson] Wentz and [Jason] Peters and [Malcolm] Jenkins, etc. Those guys have to get the locker room in the right mindset. The players are just regular human beings, and like any one of us, you work so hard for a goal and you achieve it, the normal human being reaction is to have a little bit of a letdown or a little sigh of relief or a little bit of a thrill of victory moment. And we’ve seen some teams overcome it. I actually believe the Eagles are positioned reasonably well to overcome it. But you’ve got to go into it knowing that it’s very likely to happen unless you find ways to change the trajectory. Doug’s got to use his coaching staff really effectively. They need to not overreact but also react to anticipating that this is a real risk. And I can’t overestimate that players are much more likely to listen to peers than they are to coaches or management or anything else that might be out there. So the leadership in action and words of the team leaders will determine whether Doug will have a real shot to overcome what we see happen more often than not.

Broncos claim cornerback C.J. Smith off waivers from the Browns - Mile High Report
Smith is a 5’11”, 189lb cornerback who has played in two NFL seasons. He signed with the Philadelphia Eagles after going undrafted in 2016 and bounced on and off their Practice Squad that year before being released by them in 2017. He then signed on to the Browns practice squad before being promoted to the active roster for the final handful of games. Before being waived by the Browns, they did try to trade him to the Seattle Seahawks for a conditional 2020 draft pick but the trade was nullified after he failed his physical. Smith was then waived by the Browns on April 12th and awarded to the Broncos a day later.

How NFL scouts view intangibles - The Ringer
NFL scouts spend hundreds of hours every year poring over tape to find an edge in the draft, but there’s one element that’s impossible to measure: intangibles. Here’s how the league’s evaluators try to crack the code for unquantifiable traits like poise, leadership, toughness, confidence, and, yes, grit.

The Josh Sweat Miracle: From Leg ‘Snapped in Half’ to Fastest DE in the Draft - B/R
He lay on a hospital bed in the emergency room in September 2014, looking down at his mangled leg, and was told his career was all but finished. One freak injury had rendered Josh Sweat a never-was. An urban legend for those in Chesapeake, Virginia—nothing more. He remembers hearing his doctor’s message loud and clear and...come again? ”He’s like, ‘Hey, man, you’re probably not going to play football again. I’m 98 percent sure. And we’re probably going to have to remove the bottom of your leg.’ And that’s how he left it,” Sweat remembers. “He said it was likely with the dislocation, especially at that angle—because the artery runs around the back.”

Dez Byrant calls out coaches, players labeled “Garrett’s guys” after his release - Blogging The Boys
If you had any notion that Dez Bryant was going to just move on to another team without some words for the Cowboys, well... okay I guess hardly any of us thought that would happen. Dez is talking to Jane Slater of the NFL Network and definitely is venting his feelings about what just took place. We’ll be cribbing quotes from Pro Football Talk who have transcribed much of the interview. Bryant believes that it was Jerry on one side of the table, and a group of five or six on the other side of the table, and that Jerry gave in.

Scouting Report | CB Donte Jackson – LSU - Cover 1
LSU cornerback Donte Jackson has plenty of playing experience in the most competitive conference in all of college football, and that has NFL teams believing that he can play an integral part of a defense at the next level. The junior has appeared in 35 games over the course of three seasons playing in the slot, boundary corner, and even safety. The 5′ 10 1/2″ corner weighed in at 178 pounds at the combine, but it’s pretty clear that his size did not limit his production.

Kalen Ballage already made college football history. Next he could be a NFL Draft steal - SB Nation
Kalen Ballage won’t hear his name on the first day of the 2018 NFL Draft. He probably won’t hear it on the second day either. But he’s already had a day unlike any of the running backs who will step up to shake the commissioner’s hand in the first few rounds: The former Arizona State rusher tied an FBS record by scoring eight touchdowns in a single game. Let’s relive Ballage’s historic game and then consider how his skills might translate to the NFL, whenever he gets picked.

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