Sack-Happy Defense Overwhelms Offensive Line in Eagles First Scrimmage

The defensive line made life miserable for the Eagles' O-line, with sacks coming from many different defenders, including rookie Casey Toohill

PHILADELPHIA – The Eagles’ defensive front looked like Minnesota’s Purple People Eaters from yesteryear, except the defense was clad in white with a cool fluorescent green coating the numbers on their jerseys.

Fashion aside, the men up front could not be blocked most of the day.

Who needs Yannick Ngakoue, who, by the way, still has not been traded and is holding out of camp with the Jaguars.

The defense rang up five sacks on the final seven plays of the day, with Josh Sweat – back from Thursday off due to an illness – getting the sack parade started. Fletcher Cox got one on the next play.

Then, after a completion of about 10 yards to Corey Clement, Malik Jackson got to Carson Wentz, who wasn’t actually sacked because hits on quarterbacks are always off-limits no matter what practices look like.

Wentz looked frustrated and appeared ready to spike the ball into the ground but held up.

The second-team O-line didn’t fare much better when Nate Sudfeld came onto the field, though Sudfeld opened the two-minute drill with a short throw that Elijah Holyfield turned p field for a big gain.

That was it, though, as Joe Ostman blurred by rookie Jack Driscoll at right tackle then Hassan Ridgeway left Jordan Mailata flat-footed on his way to Sudfeld.

Ostman had another sack during the course of the day and Jackson added at least two more. Rookie Casey Toohill and veteran Brandon Graham got in on the fun, too.

The excitement and enthusiasm on the defensive sidelines were electric, with players hooting and hollering whenever one of their teammates on the field did something good or whenever an offensive player made a visible mistake.

Of course, the flip side of a sack attack like the Eagles displayed is what it revealed about the offensive line, which looked like, well, let’s call it a work in progress.

That should be expected, really, but having been one of the NFL’s top units for the last several years, we have been spoiled. This year there are moving parts that everyone should be familiar with by now regarding Andre Dillard starting at left tackle and 28-yard-old Jason Peters playing right guard for the first time in his 17-year NFL career.

Add in the lack of “grass” time in the virtual offseason as well as an offense that has added a couple of new coaches in Rich Scangarello and Marty Mornhinweg, along with elevating Press Taylor to passing game coordinator and Matt Burke to run game coordinator and it may take some time for the offensive line to find their cohesion.

“I think the offense, there needs to be some time to gel, whether it’s quarterbacks and receivers on the same page, tight ends, O-line, passing off stunts, thinks like that,” said backup quarterback Nate Sudfeld, “but I think we’ve done a good job, and taking it a day at a time. Our defense has always been a challenge … They fly around. They’re not a passive defense, they’re always aggressive, so you have to be on top of your stuff to get completions.”

Peters took the first couple of snaps once the scrimmage started but went down in a heap and was replaced by Matt Pryor. Peters was fine and returned for the next go-round with the first team, but it’s pretty clear he needs to learn how to play on the interior of the line, where there are more bodies packed tightly together when the ball is snapped than there is on the outside of the line.

There was another time when Peters appeared to get bull-rushed backward by Cox almost into Wentz’s lap during a drill that had the offense trying to come off its own goal line. Wentz, who started the play lined up in the end zone, was able to scramble out to his left and fire a deep completion to John Hightower.

Much of the camp talk has been dominated by the speed of the Eagles new receivers, including Jalen Reagor, and the development of rookie quarterback Jalen Hurts, but when the pads came on, the focus shifted to the trenches and right now it looks like the defensive line is way ahead of the offensive line with just over three weeks to go until the season opener against Washington.

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