Asante Samuel never seems to stop talking during the OTA’s but he stopped talking today.¬† He was covering Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson on post route and made the mistake of letting it turn into a foot race.
It wasn’t much of a contest when Kevin Kolb let the ball go.¬† He put it up deep down the middle of the field and it was over before it got started.¬† Kolb put it out there and Jackson went and got it.
It turned into a long touchdown and Samuel took forever to run back.¬† This was his final rep before the second unit came in aand Samuel didn’t have anything at all to say.
It took him a while until he started claiming he didn’t get the help he expected from one of the safeties.¬† Nobody was taking him seriously.
The Eagles pass offense opened things up in practice is this the second day of the OTA’s.¬† Both Kolb and Michael Vick had armbands on with plays on them, which allowed the coaches to call a larger variety of plays.
They began with one-on-one drills with the receivers running routes against the cornerbacks.¬† It’s not a fair drill because there’s no pass rush, no linebacker help, but I think it shows the problems the Eagles have at the cornerback position.
Kolb started out at the quarterback and he hit Jeremy Maclin on a curl route against Macho Harris.  Maclin looks more polished in his routes.  Harris backs off all the receivers and gives them the short to intermediate routes.  This is why I doubt his ability to play the corner spot.
Next up was Jason Avant and he ran a slant route.¬† Kolb got him the ball and he came down with it.¬† Hank Baskett ran an out route to the left but wasn’t able to pull it in.
Jordan Norwood caught an out route from Kolb, then the young quarterback misfired on a deep ball to free agent Dobson Collins.
Michael Vick took over and started with a completion on a slant to little Chad Hall.  He followed that with a completed out to Blue Cooper, then a completion on another out route to free agent Kevin Jurovich.  Next up Vick hit Riley Cooper on another out.
Vick finished up with a completion to Jackson on a comeback route and the defensive back on him was running deep as Jackson curled up and came back to the throw at about 12 yards deep.
Kolb jumped back in there and connected on five of the next seven throws.  He hit tight end Brent Celek when he got him manned up on one of the linebackers.  Maclin did a nice job getting open out of a bunch formation, which I expect to see a lot of against man-to-man coverages.
Vick finished it up with two completions before the horn sounded and the period ended.  On the last play, Riley Cooper beat Quintin Demps deep and showed some surprising speed in running away from Demps.
Normally the young quarterbacks take those reps but Kolb and Vick took all of the reps.¬† I liked the fact that they when they detected that Kolb was on a roll then let him take more reps.¬† Despite the fact that there are other things going on in these OTA’s, nothing is more important than the development of Kolb.
I thought Kolb had a good day today in the one-on-one drills, then seven-on-seven, and finally the team period.¬† He threw only one pick and completed a high percentage of his throws. He’s making his decisions quickly and getting the ball out of his hands.
I thought Vick had a good day as well.¬† I think he’s becoming more comfortable in the offense and seems willing to throw the ball down the field much more often.¬† If nobody comes open both Kolb and Vick don’t hesitate to pull the ball down and take off.
As always good stuff G!
Yep thats Asante for ya. Always talking trash until he gets burned! He’ll never win a foot race with DJax.
I know its much too early but its good to see Kolb and Vick playing well.
When the team first acquired Asante, I completely disagreed with the acquisition. I felt he was a liability against the run. Besides, I was a huge Lito Sheppard fan. After a year, I warmed up to Asante’s style of play, because of the interceptions. Last year, however, his inability to tackle was totally exposed, and I’ve soured on him, again Hopefully, he’ll prove me wrong twice.
This team would go further with Vick at the Helm. The Eagles already have taken the PR hit signing Vick, so now they should lock him up with a long term deal and we can have a alright back up with Kolb. I feel Kolb can hold it steady for a few games if pressed into duty, but he’s not a star in this league. Did you notice he only threw one pick today? what progress…ONLY ONE PICK
Blue Cooper? What’s the story behind that one, G?
What happens with this O/Line will dictate how this Offense goes..
With LG Herremans hurting again, C J Jackson recovering from Knee Surgery from December,
Question marks surrounding Stacey Andrews… I see this middle of Eagles Offensive line as a real-weak link to this team and could make opposing teams Defenses come right up the gut with aggressive blitzes to get after Kolb and limit the Eagles Rushing attack… (especially versus teams that are strong defensively up the middle like the Packers,Vikings,Cowboys,Giants,Redskins,49ers)
that utilize strong bullish NT or DT and also have good LB play..
This season is starting to look tougher and tougher for the Eagles..
Paulman, first you are assuming the worst case scenario. But it is certainly a concern. So in that event, let them come and send McCoy, Weaver and Celek on short routes and dump it to them constantly. Keep doing that, I mean real quick throws, and they won’t be able to blitz.
PMan – think you will see a lot more ‘rolling pockets’ this year then in years past. Kolb was very effective in college at rolling both ways and throwing on the move.
o line dictated the offense last yr when we played against teams with lil or no pass rush we atem alive. teams with a solid front four or teams that blitzed ate us alive but i guess now the oline is important
GOOD IDEA SCHILL…Let’s dink and dunk our way to the Superbowl. Schill…please retire. Your spin could have worked about 5 years ago when they actually had a good team
yea i agree with songs here schill u talk as if this madden ( if they send a nano up the middle im going to hit the cirlce route out of the backfield ) lol cmon no glitches in nfl well maybe i take that back when blitzing eagles there r glitches where people come untouched aka nano in madden lol used to be us with jim johnson rip jim 1 of my alltime favs
ok so song, you’re saying that if the blitz is coming up the middle, and our interior oline can’t block it, Kolb should look for the long pass? If you are saying that, then your football knowledge is pitiful. If you aren’t saying that, you’re just picking your stock complaint to maintain the negativity. The point is to beat the blitz with quick throws to guys who are where the blitzers vacated. That makes the blitzers stay back and balances out that interior oline weakness that was referred to above. But you’re probably just using the compliant d’jour. I know 1 team that used what you call ‘dink and dunk’ last year – the superbowl champion Saints.They threw short to all three running backs and their TEs to beat blitzes. Brady did it to Faulk for the pats. Steelers to Miller. It’s a staple of beating the blitz in the NFL.
personnel philosphy and coaching are all things u r leaving out tho no question what u said would help but there are times u do have 2 pick up the blitz as well u do understand with lack of running games for yrs our team faces 3rd and 10s 3rd and 8s alot theefore u prob need to pick these up cause we all saw d5 dump the ball off 4 yards on 3rd and 8s too many times and with 1 of the most stubborn coaches ever i still see the birds struggling with the blitz but in all honesty teams like dallas just killed us with rushing 4 or 5 thats also something i would like to see mcdermott adopt it seems like everytime we blitz its like an engage 8 lol like 7 guys blitzing i’d like to see maybe just 1 extra guy come once in a while versus all out variety blitzes
hey, I think it’s safe to say that everyone agrees, they need to pick up the blitz, and block DL well. That goes for every Olman and RB/FB/TE. I’m saying, that there are ways to beat a team that constantly blitzes. D5 is gone, this is a new offense. Forget about years past, it will be different. I’m not saying I know it will be better, but forget about D5, previous offenses etc… WAIT TILL THEY PLAY GAMES! Then we will see what will happen.
Schiller,
New QB but same guys blocking for him up front with no J Jackson for a while, a questionable Herremans and a big question ?? with Stacey Andrews, as far as I am concerned..
The Middle of this O/Line will be exploited for what it is, weak to average at best and Defenses will watch what the Cowboys did in those final 2 games and flood the middle with stunts,blitzes,etc,etc..
And you really think that AR is genius enough to change his blocking schemes.formations…
to anticipate this…Wow… I will say a little prayer for you….
i just said d5 cause he’s been the qb for andy the last 10yrs if it were kolb i woulda said to many times on 3rd and 12 kolb dumps the ball off for 4 yards and we punt but he only did that against the saints so i figured id just not mention it as well as his ravens dump off that went for 106 yards lmao
hey i agree with u paulman 100 % on that 1 lol the worse part about the dallas blitzes early on when the gms were close they were just bringing like 1extra man and AR couldnt adjust then after we were down a cpl scores they were bringin the house cause they knew dump offs didnt do much
This may sound frivolous but keep 5, you are going to change your name at some point right?