Inside Dave Fipps' Special Team Challenges

PHILADELPHIA – T. J. Edwards led the Eagles in special team tackles with 14 last year. Nathan Gerry was tied for fourth with eight.

With their defensive roles expected to increase this season, the linebackers may not see much special teams work this season.

There are other challenges facing Eagles special team coordinator Dave Fipp, too.

By now, the Eagles would have had two preseason games played under their belt. Special team roles would be a bit more in focus, but the global pandemic had other ideas.

“Those preseason games have been great for us in the past,” said Fipp prior to Friday’s team electric team scrimmage. “You know, there's a handful of things that are good. One good thing is everybody's under the same restrictions, so nobody has those, and then coach (Doug) Pederson has done an outstanding job of really setting up the practice schedule and the structure so we can get a lot of competitive drills in there.”

Watching practice this week, the emphasis on special team drills was easy to see. Maybe there is more work being put into it, but much of the sorting out of roles won’t come until more decisions are made on who will get the bulk of the defensive snaps.

The Eagles, like other teams, don’t want to overwork the core of their starters by putting them on specialty units.

“We'll just see how it plays out on defense,” said Fipp. “That's kind of everybody's position this time of year. In my shoes, you're kind of waiting for the top end of the thing to sort itself out, and then as that sorts itself out, you can make a little bit more sense of exactly the pieces that we're going to get to work with a little bit more.

“We are always trying to balance a guy's (work) load on game day. If he's playing a lot of defense, maybe he can't play quite as much on (special) teams or vice versa. So, we'll just see how that all shakes out. We try to kind of get everybody in position, so when the top falls, then our stuff falls in line, too.”

Gerry played 61 percent of the defensive snaps last year; Edwards 11 percent.

Those numbers will in all likelihood increase.

The two linebackers who could fill in are draft picks Davion Taylor and Shaun Bradley, with undrafted free agent Dante Olson still in the mix.

The Eagles’ emphasis on getting faster in the offseason should certainly help the special team units no matter who is on them.

The speed of Taylor and Bradley was been on display all week at practice.

“We definitely look faster out there,” said Fipp. “We've got a lot of speed. You need speed and good football players, but we’ve got a bunch of guys that can do both of that. We are really excited about it. You see it on the practice field.

“It's been encouraging and the other thing along those lines, so many of our plays on special teams are just wide-area plays. They are long field plays where there's 20, 30-yard zones where you're not being touched, for example on kickoff, you run 30 yards before anyone is even by you. These guys on special teams plays end up getting to a top speed more often probably than you would on any offensive or defensive play, and I would say it's definitely shown up for us.”

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