There’s no question that the Eagles defense was the weakness of the team last season. They struggled against both the pass and the run, and gave up over 300 yards per game.
This could be credited to many things: first year on the job for defensive coordinator Sean McDermott, the loss of Brian Dawkins or the lack of a consistent pass rush. All of those itemss are valid reasons for the set back last season.
However, if the linebackers can play as good as they look early on in training camp, the team could make a big leap back in the right direction.
Stewart Bradley, who was on the way to being a Pro Bowler before he injured his knee last season, seems to be back in Pro Bowl form. He is all over the place at Lehigh, getting behind the line to stop the run, and following tight ends stride for stride. He has knocked the ball down from Brent Celek countless times.
Bradley had the play of the day on Saturday when he stepped in front of Jeremy Maclin to intercept a Kevin Kolb pass. Bradley said afterwards that the defense this year will allow him to make more plays with his lateral speed.
In addition to Bradley, the team also added Ernie Sims from Detriot this off season. Sims had over 100 tackles his first 3 seasons in the league, before missing 5 games last season due to injury. He is built like a bowling ball, and has serious speed. He had no problems following Jeremy Maclin  on Saturday on a crossing route.
Sims is also not afraid to lay down a big hit. He was crushing people on Saturday when the pads were on, both in the scrimmages and the drills. He will be a serious problem for opposing offenses when he comes on the blitz.
In addition to Sims and Bradley, the team has a surprising amount of depth in the line-backer spot. Omar Gaither can play all 3 spots, Moise Fokou is a year older and looks impressive so far, and Akeem Jordan has played decent when called upon in the past.  Undrafted rookie Simoni Lawrence has been making plays when he is called upon, and even ran with the 2nd team on Saturday. Playing beside Bradley and Sims should make these players even better.
If the Eagles can get great play from the linebackers, it will help the defense immensely.  This group looks like they can cover tightends, which will help the pass defense. They are also a fast, hard hitting bunch, which will help the run. It could also help a secondary that has some question marks. Having Bradley back will also allow McDermott to call a more aggressive game plan.
Its early on, and theirs still plenty of camp to go, but the Eagles have to be happy about what they see so far from their line-backing crew.
Don’t forget to follow @garrycobb and @philly_stand_up on twitter for up to the minute updates from Eagles Camp!
Do these guys really need to be hitting each other with punishing blows? What happens when we lose a key player on the team because someone wanted to show off? Just hit the dude and be done with it…you don’t have to kill your own teammates!
Let them play, and play hard..
You build toughness and aggression thru the camps and drills,
You can’t play 2-hand touch for 2 months and then expect to play “Hard & Physical” for real come the regular season..If a couple players get injured, that’s the price all teams play to get their players ready for the season. The way the Eagles tackled and played D last year, they need all the hitting,tackling drills they can get..
seems like quite a few upgrades to the d to me dam
this was a 10-6 team on the verge of a 1st round bye with no d
with some defensive upgrades here and supposedly not missing a beat on O actually the O will be better from everything im hearing ( get the ball out quicker, more accurate, better decision maker, no dirt balls, leader, blah, blah blah etc) im guessin we improve by at least a cpl games so 12-4 and we should be a sb contender
so when the d plays better and is 1 of the top 5 in point per game allowed again
then can we point to kolb ?
I can see 10-11 wins for the Eagles and compete for a playoff spot,but the Cowboys are the class of the NFC East right now, The Giants will be improved I believe, for they made some nice upgrades with their defense including a solid Defensive Coordiantor in P Jewell but they have added
Safeties A Rolle,D Grant, tough-nosed MLB K Bullock,and with top Draft picks in Pierre-Paul,L Joseph, and the return of Safety K Phillips, they Defense will be much improved
They also have a very good young WR corps who are improving and rival the Eagles as far as talent
and playmaking ability in Steve Smith, H Nicks, M Manningham, R Barden and watch out for TE
Travis Beckham who will take a big leap and push K Boss for starting time.
I think the Redskins are tough to call on, they have improved their OL, have QB McNabb at the helm
are re-vamping a solid Defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4 but have lots of question marks at WR,RB,SAfety and LB postions… They should start out fast with a pretty easy schedule but need to get this Haynesworth embarrasmant behind then wuickly and get back to being a team again.. Shannahan made his point but he needs to bve care and not continue to humiliate Haynesworth for he will only
alienate more and more players who are like, “enough is enough” already.. What’s Albert running back to back 300 yard shuttles for when all he will ever do is run 10-20 yards during a game…
Sims appears to be a little stupid for big hits in practice and pre season on his own teammates. As G said he has 1 interception in 4 years and dosen’t have a feel for the passing game. On the surface this does not sound promising.