Eagles News: The top training camp battles

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Five Eagles training camp battles to watch - PhillyVoice
5) The outside corner opposite Darius Slay: Avonte Maddox vs. Sidney Jones. This isn’t really a training camp battle, in my view, as the starting outside corner opposite Slay is almost certainly going to be Maddox, but we’ll include it because there are some who believe that Jones has a real shot at that spot. Comments from Howie Roseman form back in March about each player were pretty telling about the hierarchy of the corner position.

NFC training camp battles to watch: Bears QB, Eagles WR, more - NFL.com
Philadelphia Eagles: WR · Jalen Reagor vs. JJ Arcega-Whiteside vs. Alshon Jeffery vs. Greg Ward — This battle for snaps behind DeSean Jackson already lost one participant when trade acquisition Marquise Goodwin opted out of the season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jeffery’s foot surgery might prevent him from playing early in the season, so the Eagles desperately need their first-round pick this year (Reagor) to step up.

Tra Thomas has concerns about the Eagles moving Jason Peters to right guard - BGN
THOMAS: That’s the question, man. To me, he’s been in a left-handed stance for 14, 15 years now. And you’re going to say, alright, let’s switch over and we’re going to move you over to the right side and, oh yeah, we’re gonna bump you down to guard? I think that’s a big ask. Especially when you don’t have any preseason games, any warmup, you’re not going through OTAs, you’re not going through any of that. Training camp is going to be modified. So you’re pretty much going to go from, hey, let’s move you over to right guard from a couple practices and then now they’re just going to throw you in the live fire in a game. That’s a big ask, when you’re asking someone that’s been in a left-handed stance for so long. I think over the past few years he’s probably gone over to the right side in an unbalanced formation, when it was short-yardage or goal line situations, maybe once or twice. And that’s probably the only time you’ve seen him in a right-handed stance. But other than that, he’s been on the left side of the ball. I think when you say ‘Does he have the skill to do it?’ Absolutely. He has the skill, he can create the power. But the problem is, is just the uncomfortableness of being on the other side of the ball and just the durability part of it. If you were getting banged up dealing with defensive ends, now you’re dealing with bigger bodies, guys that are the Fletcher Cox’s of the world, on a weekly basis.

Special: Annual Jersey Number Analytics Extravaganza - BGN Radio
Brandon Lee Gowton and Benjamin Solak go through the entire Eagles roster to determine who is prime for a breakout year and who is guaranteed to bust by utilizing the latest and greatest #jerseynumberanalytics. Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Midseason Form - Iggles Blitz
This is absolutely not a good year to be a late round rookie or UDFA. No one on earth can honestly believe this. Instead of having three months to practice, learn and impress coaches, young guys will now have about two weeks. What happened in Zoom meetings does count for something, but not nearly as much as what would have happened on the practice field in the spring of 2019. Young players need every chance possible to work with the coaches and impress them. Sometimes Doug just starts talking before he really thinks about questions. I’ll let him keep doing that if he delivers another Super Bowl. That’s fair, right?

Projecting future Hall of Famers for all 32 NFL teams - ESPN
Work to do (10% to 39%): QB Carson Wentz, TE Zach Ertz, CB Darius Slay. Eagles fans will be furious, but the reality is that Wentz has made one Pro Bowl and hasn’t won a playoff game or led the league in a major statistical category (outside of fumbles) during his first four seasons. Things would be different if he had actually won the MVP award or been the quarterback who ran the Eagles through the playoffs in 2017. Wentz’s injury history this early in his career also doesn’t bode well for his chances of playing deep into his 30s. A big individual season and a few MVP votes in 2020 would be enough to push him into the next category.

Full-squad look: Checking in on Eagles’ team roster - PE.com
There are 10 of them on the roster at the moment, including veteran Alshon Jeffery, who is on the Active/PUP list. Jeffery and DeSean Jackson are the leaders in the room, and Greg Ward returns after playing well out of the slot late last season. J.J. Arcega-Whiteside is looking for a big bump in his second year. Jalen Reagor, the No. 1 pick, headlines a three-man draft class (John Hightower, Quez Watkins the others). Rob Davis and Deontay Burnett are back after playing down the stretch for the Eagles last season. Manasseh Bailey is a non-drafted rookie from Morgan State who will have to make the most of his summer reps.

Carson Wentz excited about changes coming to Eagles offense in 2020 - NBCSP
Bringing in Scangarello was largely about Wentz. The Eagles looked at Wentz’s game and realized he’s at his best when he’s able to move in and out of the pocket and throw on the run. Even Pederson admitted that when they looked back they noticed that Wentz “excelled” at the play action, QB movement and in the screen game. The concepts Scangarello brings should match that really well. It’s probably the biggest reason he’s here … to maximize Wentz. The subtle changes Pederson has talked about this offseason — protections, play action, screens, run game — will all be on display when the Eagles finally start practices later this month. It’s a good sign that Wentz seems excited about it.

Fantasy football backup running back situations ranked - DraftKings Nation
7. Philadelphia Eagles. Starter: Miles Sanders. Backup: Boston Scott. With Jordan Howard gone, Sanders is the lead back going into the season. His backup, Boston Scott, played well last year and should be a strong fantasy option if Sanders misses time. I’ll be targeting Scott later in drafts.

Unease and Uncertainty at the First Week of NFL Training Camp - The Ringer
This week, after five months of an unprecedented offseason, NFL players who cleared the league’s initial COVID-19 testing protocol returned to their team facilities and saw their teammates and coaches for the first time this season. They arrived at reconfigured locker rooms, heard about opt-outs, and possibly considered their own. Still, there were enough typical story lines to make the beginning of training camp feel familiar: Players compared it to the first day of school and declared themselves in the best shape of their lives. Bill Belichick made an obscure Rutgers football reference, proving that some things remain the same. A lot has changed, though. What players and coaches are going through right now is training camp in name only, and more like the first phase of normal offseason programming with strength and conditioning work and walkthroughs.

Sources: Derrick Gunn Out, as NBC Sports Philadelphia Lays Off 17 Employees and Moves Away From Sideline Reporters - Crossing Broad
[BLG Note: Really sucks to see a lot of talented people laid off like this. Especially bad for Eagles fans to be losing DGunn.]

How realistic are Amari Cooper’s lofty expectations for the Cowboys receiving corps? - Blogging The Boys
All of this is to say that McCarthy has never really had three top tier receivers at the same time. While Nelson, Cobb, and Adams all developed into great receivers later on, it took time to get there. Given that all were second-round picks, that’s to be expected. But McCarthy now has two receivers coming off 1,000 yard seasons and a first-round rookie receiver who many thought was worthy of a top ten pick. Despite working with two of the greatest quarterbacks ever in Green Bay, the Cowboys offer McCarthy the best set of weapons he’s ever had. And with Prescott coming off the best year of his career to date, in which he topped Aaron Rodgers’ career best in passing yards by a significant margin, Dallas seems to be in the best position it’s ever been to hit 1,000 receiving yards by three receivers.

How Giants’ Daniel Jones stacks up vs. other NFL starting quarterbacks - Big Blue View
The one to focus upon is Washington. In the end, I think Chris is spot-on with this. When you look at the situations surrounding both second-year passers, Jones is in a much more favorable spot than Dwayne Haskins. Jones has better weapons around him, and performed better on the field than Haskins did in his limited action.

Eight UCLA Football players test positive for coronavirus - Bruins Nation
The Los Angeles County Health Director has reported eight positive test results for COVID-19 on the UCLA Bruins football team, LA Times Eric Sondheimer is reporting. [BLG Note: Remember when UCLA players expressed concern about Chip Kelly’s program?]

“It’s like we’re flying blind”: The US has a Covid-19 data problem - Vox
Six months into America’s battle with Covid-19, we still can’t really see the enemy. There isn’t good real-time data on where the virus is and who it is infecting. Our diagnostic testing is at an all-time high, but it’s still missing the vast majority of infections. We don’t have systematic surveillance programs like we do for the flu to fill in the gaps, and we don’t have good metrics that tell us how well the virus is being contained. We’re particularly in the dark about what’s happening in many minority communities, which have lower testing rates than white communities.

WWE legend Marty Jannetty potentially admitted murder in bizarre, offensive Facebook post - SB Nation
Professional wrestler Marty Jannetty, best known for his time in WWE as a member of the legendary tag team “The Rockers” with Shawn Michaels, confessed to committing murder when he was 13 years old in a rambling, bizarre Facebook post.

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