Philadelphia Eagles Training Camp Notes

This is team two of my 32 (maybe) part series of bringing you all the information about how the young guys are looking at training camp. I hope to get out to the Buffalo Bills training camp this next week to give you first person account, we’ll see how that goes. Now onto what they’re saying about the Eagles young guys in training camp. I can’t be at every training camp and neither can you, but I can do all the research for you to find the interesting happenings at teams training camps.

From Reuben Frank of CSN Philly.com

2) Mike Kafka’s arm. It got stronger. A lot stronger. Not sure how, but he throws like an NFL quarterback now. This time last year, he couldn’t hit a 15-yard out. Now he fires it.

Casey Matthews looks bigger than I expected. This ain’t Joe Mays. There’s still a good chance the Eagles will sign a veteran MLB by opening day, but these are great reps for Matthews. He’s holding his own out there. Knows what he’s doing. He’s one guy you really want to keep an eye on in the preseason games.

Sinorice Moss keeps showing up. In the spirit of Na Brown, Hank Baskett, Jeremy Bloom and Darnerian McCants, he’s this year’s stud training camp wide receiver. Moss has played in the league and caught as many as 21 passes in a season with the Giants, so he’s not a fluke. Nice little receiver.

Moss was also the Giants training camp star year after year, though it never translated fully onto the field, but he certainley has the talent and the Eagles will love his dynamic speed.

Another impressive young corner early on here has been Brandon Hughes. He also shined in that meaningless Dallas game at the end of last year. There’s not a lot of roster space for young corners here, but Hughes will be a player somewhere.

Danny Watkins is a bright kid, but it’s not going to be easy for him to pick up everything between now and opening day. Nobody needs every minute of training camp (not to mention OTAs and minicamps) more than Watkins.

From Leightvalleylive.com

The plays of the day came from rookie free agent wide receiver Sinorice Moss, who made several circus catches on deep balls. With DeSean Jackson (holdout) and Jeremy Maclin (illness) still not at Lehigh the smallish (5-8, 185) Moss is getting a bunch of reps and making a very strong impression.

Of course though, Sinorice Moss is not a rookie free agent. He’s been in the league for awhile with the Eagles rivals the Giants.

From BleedingGreenNation

Kafka deep to Johnny Lee Higgins. Underthrown, and Curtis Marsh makes the pick. As Marsh runs it back, Asante runs out onto the field, grabs the ball from Marsh and spikes it. Crowd cheers.

Sack by Philip Hunt. Coverage sack. Kafka throws anyway. Dropped by Cornelius Ingram.

There’s a player I completely forgot about. Ingram has all the talent in the world, though he’s considered an injury risk. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of playing time he’ll get this year.

I look over and Mike Mayock is furiously taking notes. Impressive. Really is dedicated to his craft. First national guy I’ve seen that actually has intently watched the practices and what the players are doing on the field. The other guys are more worried about shoehorning in a question during the pressers, figuring out how they want to spin quotes to make for compelling TV time, or just BS’ing with the other media guys. Mayock, meanwhile, is intensely scouting. Tip of the cap, Mike.

Well there’s more proof of what we draftniks already know. Mayock’s the best in the buseinss. He’s not always right, but he is always great to get an educated opinion from on NFLnetwork.

Stanley Havili up the middle for two. First time I’ve seen them hand the ball to Havili. Not getting a lot of reps.

A smart underpublicized move in the draft by the Eagles. They could miss Leonard Weaver who fit their system perfectly, but Havili has a shot at being a pretty good pro.

9 on 9’s (Running plays only – live hitting):

Casey Matthews yells “Watch out for the trap!!!” Sure enough, it’s a trap play that goes nowhere. Impressive.

So far it seems that Eagles observers are intrigued by what they are seeing from Casey Matthews.

Kafka checks at the line. I noted yesterday that I can’t remember Kafka checking at the line at all last camp. Way more confidence this year. Different player. Unfortunately, it’s a bad check. Run goes nowhere. Colt Anderson with the TFL.

From NFC East:

Casey Matthews is still lining up at middle linebacker with Jamar Chaney, who played that spot last season when Stewart Bradley got hurt, on the outside. “If you ask me which one I like the best, I like the MIKE,” Chaney said. “But it is what it is. I consider myself able to play all three. It doesn’t matter. I’m still going to go out and get the job done.” I have to think there’s still a chance the Eagles bring in a veteran to address this, be it someone for the middle or someone who can play on the strong side and move Chaney back into the middle.

The repeating themes for young players here seems to be that the most impressive young players this training camp have been Casey Matthews and QB Mike Kafka. The other thing that has happened is that Cornelius Ingram has come back to the team. The reports have mentioned that the secondary looks much better this year than it did last year in training camp, but that should be expected. Also all over ESPN was the fact that Mike Patterson had seizures on the football field and may have to have surgery. Let’s hope that situation turns out well.

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