Expect Week 1 Roles For What Could Potentially Be The Next Eagles' 1-2 Draft Knockout

PHILADELPHIA – The Eagles have had quite a knockout 1-2 punch in the past several drafts. Now comes the latest edition to try to score a KO, when Makai Lemon and Eli Stowers make their pro debuts at home against the Washington Commanders on Sunday.

Stowers, the second-round tight end, is listed as questionable with a hamstring injury, but in Friday’s locker room he said he expects to play.

“That's the plan,” he said. “I'm super excited just to get back onto the field and be able to play in first real regular season game, it's a blessing, so I'm excited for it.”

Stowers said he suffered the hamstring injury during one of the joint practices with the Patriots in mid-August.

Meanwhile, Friday’s locker room availability was over and there was no sign of Lemon talking at his locker. The Eagles PR staff, however, told the media to stick around and he would talk outside when he was done doing extra work on the field to prepare for Sunday.

Lemon, the first-round receiver, has been doing extra work on the field since his hamstring injury was deemed fully healthy in the final week of training camp. He arrived for the waiting crowd of reporters about 15 minutes after the 450minute locker room session ended.

“Getting extra reps, I feel like that's what is gonna take you to that next level,” said Lemon, pinned up against the Eagles’ office building at the Jefferson Health Training Complex by a dozen or more reporters and TV cameras. “I feel like I'm caught up for sure. I feel good and right with the team.”

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Eli Stowers works on a drill during Eagles practice. | Ed Kracz/Eagles on S

Stowers will likely see time on special teams to start, something he said he hardly did at Vanderbilt. It’s a way for the Eagles to let him get a feel for the speed of a real NFL game. And who knows, maybe there will be a handful of plays where they try to get him the football.

“He may not have played in college, but it is football,” said special teams coach Michael Clay. “It's a shell shock for a lot of rookies who are playing against grown men here in terms of the physicality. ... I'm always looking forward to anybody I could work with, regardless of if they've played any (special teams) if they didn't play any, for their first time playing football."

It’s ridiculous for anyone to write off Stowers – and even Lemon, for that matter – at this stage of their development.

“Everybody's road and their development, it's different for every single person,” said Stowers, who added that he approaches every day with the mindset of just getting better.

“That's kind of what I remind myself of,” he said.

In the brief glimpses we have seen of Lemon, he looks like a just-turned-22-year-old who is trying too hard and not letting the game come to him.

Asked about that by On Eagles SI on Friday, he said: “The guys just telling me to go out there, do what I've been doing in practice and just perfect what your assignment is. Like you said, don't try to do too much, just be yourself.”

Lemon’s locker is next to DeVonta Smith. And that is by design.

“I always tell him, ‘I'm, I'm here if you need me, I'm not gonna bother you much, but if you need something, just come talk to me anytime,’” said Smith.

The receiver then tilted his head to the locker next to his and said, “That’s the reason they put him right here.”

If both rookies learn their lessons well, they will be the next 1-2 draft punch, joining the likes of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean (2024), Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith (2023), Jordan Davis and Cam Jurgens (2022), and Smith and Landon Dickerson (2021).

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