Over 40,000 fans travelled to Lincoln Financial field to get their second dosage of the 2015 Philadelphia Eagles. The birds fashioned camouflaged jerseys to honour the nations military in a grand mark of respect before handing their jerseys to the nations heroes at the end of the day. It’s been a week since we first saw the birds in action as they start to build towards the upcoming season, here are the main points from todays Camp.
Shepherd’s warning
Unfortunately for sixth round draft pick JaCorey Shepherd, his training camp has ended prematurely. He was carted off from the Linc following a tackle on Darren Sproles and will undergo an MRI tomorrow. A few sources have claimed that they believe it’s an ACL injury, but we don’t want to jump the gun until official information is released. All we know is that without Boykin, JaCorey was favourite to step up and take the reigns..now there’s even more uncertainty in the position.
The Thurmonator
We really should be running the Eagles social media with these puns..it was Walter Thurmond who stole the spotlight today, picking up two interceptions, swatting a pass on his very first rep and almost being attached to the ball at times. It’s clear the Eagles favour their new signing over Earl Wolff and his tracking ability is beyond impressive. It’s not often you see someone in Walter’s position storm through the trenches to bring down a running back either, is it? Thurmond did exactly that today to tackle Mostert.
Huff and Puff
Josh Huff has come exploded this camp, part of the reason for that is his constant war with Byron Maxwell. Play after play the two are almost in a “anything you can do, I can do better” kind of scenario. It’s healthy competition unlike the fights we’re seeing elsewhere. The two end plays with the greatest of respect and then get right back at it. One minute Maxwell is swatting down balls like it’s nothing, the next Josh Huff is making over the shoulder plays and showing his strength to push past the corner. Huff hasn’t shown the greatest ball security and that may be something that holds him back as every other factor is a positive. The partnership with Maxwell is arguably the strongest on the team, to have someone who is giving 110% play in and play out lined up against you all camp is only going to drive you to do better..this sort of environment may just highlight how dangerous the Eagles special teams wizard truly is.
Quiet Quarterbacks
There have been no real Quarterback headlines today, Bradford was good as expected but perhaps not as impressive as the two previous days as the pads came back on. Putting the ball where he needs to and raising eyebrows with the speed of his dart passes, fans still looked delighted whenever Bradford found Matthews down the sideline or Ertz over the middle. Interestingly it’s been Josh Huff who’s been getting a lot of love from Bradford too!
Sanchez didn’t do much to set the world on fire as he continued to raise hopes and then drop them. From some poor goal-line decisions to scoring a couple of TD’s, Sanchez has shown form close to what we saw last season.
Meanwhile the fans roared when Tim Tebow ran a read option to score a touchdown.
Barkley has been looking slightly better when it comes to mobility and it’s obvious where he’s getting the mentoring from..but still was unable to break the mould entirely, throwing more underthrows and interceptions.
The Running’s back
These puns are getting worse..unlike our running backs! DeMarco Murray returned to take first team reps after missing a fair amount of camp due to illness but as he got back into the swing of things it was Ryan Matthews who began to shine. He certainly looks quicker an sharper than the last time he played in an NFL game, bursting through into holes where he’s seemingly got all the space in the world.
