Eagles OTAs 5 Storylines: RB Battle, Nakobe Dean Ready?
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It’s easy to get excited about OTAs for the Philadelphia Eagles, especially in a city where the Phillies are failing to live up to expectations and the Sixers have already drowned in the playoffs in the same spot where they always seem to take on water, the second round.
For the most part, it’s much to do about nothing.
There are some exceptions, and here are some storylines to pay attention to when OTAs begin on Tuesday at the team’s NovaCare Complex.
Light workload. There are just six sessions over the next two weeks as head coach Nick Sirianni and the strength and conditioning staff like to keep players as fresh as possible for the long haul of a season that awaits in just a few months.
Thursday’s session is expected to be open to the media to watch and select players will be made available for interviews.
Like last year, there won’t be a mandatory minicamp. The Eagles are the only team in the league that forgoes this part of the offseason.
The trade-off is that players are expected to attend OTAs, even though they are optional unless there is a good excuse for them not to be in attendance.
Nakobe Dean. The second-year linebacker will likely wear the green dot for Desai. Though he has a year of experience under his belt, most of his snaps as a rookie came on special teams, with just 34 of them coming on defense.
Dean will be counted on heavily this season, and a case could be made that the linebacker group is the team’s biggest area of concern given the lack of proven depth behind Dean and free-agent signing Nicholas Morrow.
“Just trying to learn, getting comfortable with all the guys that’s out there with you,” said Dean. “… It’s great that we go through OTAs and get that comfortability with each other.
“I learned a lot from them two guys (T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White) who were in front of me. You kind of learn different thought processes of defense from where I came from in college, and where they came from.
"I learned everything from little techniques to little things on how the league runs, how offenses in the league run. You just learn it throughout the season, definitely with the long season we had last year.”
RB1
There was no question who had this job last year – Miles Sanders.
This year, with Sanders off to Carolina in free agency, it’s far from settled, with D’Andre Swift acquired in a trade during the draft and Rashaad Penny signed in free agency.
There won’t be any jobs won here over the next two years, so maybe the better watch during OTAs will be Trey Sermon and how much work he gets and how he handles that work.
New coordinators and players. It will be interesting to see how first-year offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and defensive coordinator Sean Desai interact with the players on their side of the ball.
Desai has five starters to replace on defense, and that process will ramp up these final two weeks until training camp.
In addition to the seven rookie draft picks, there are some other new players that will draw eyeballs, starting with cornerback Greedy Williams and followed by undrafted free agent punter Ty Zentner.
Of the draft picks, the most intriguing to me is third-round safety Sydney Brown from Illinois. The team is high on him, and he could very well earn a starting job at some point in the season, if not right out of the gate.
Also, how much work Tyler Steen gets at right guard will be watched closely as he is expected to compete with Cam Jurgens for the spot vacated by Isaac Seumalo.
Conditioning, especially that of Jalen Carter. Nick Sirianni said during the rookie minicamp in early May that nobody was in shape, nor was anybody expected to be. Sirianni’s remarks came after being questioned about Carter in particular.
The rookie defensive tackle’s conditioning bears monitoring considering how he looked his last time on the field, which was during his pro day at the University of Georgia shortly after his abbreviated stint at the NFL Scouting Combine.
There’s probably no way anybody will be ready to play a full game at this time of year, either, but they should be closer to peak condition than not.
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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