There’s been a lot of positive press about the Eagles coming out of Eagles camp lately, but not so much in the media – even from our own Angelo Cataldi, who took Birds head coach Nick Sirianni to task on a Borgata Friday on Angelo Cataldi and the Morning Team.
“He’s got this extra expectation to deal with, and his first reaction has been to pull back to half the OTAs that are allowed and not hold a minicamp – I guess out of fear that he’s going to get this really good roster injured? That’s not the right way to handle that, is it?” Cataldi asked Mike Lombardi as the NFL insider joined the show on Friday.
And, as you might expect, Lombardi agreed.
“Not for me it’s not; I don’t want to sound like an old school guy, but to me, football is a sport that requires practicing, and I have yet to see a team that executed without practicing,” Lombardi said.
Lombardi did mention the Rams, who as he said “have three or four great players and the rest of them practice” as a team that can maybe do it, but the Eagles aren’t there yet – and last year shouldn’t be a smokescreen for reality.
“He needs to (practice), especially when you really peel back a layer,” Lombardi said. “The Eagles didn’t beat anybody last year. They made the playoffs, and that’s great, but they were behind 31-0 in a playoff game, and the six good quarterbacks they faced, there were only 36 incomplete passes.”
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It’s not just the defense, though, according to Lombardi.
“There’s a lot of work. They weren’t great on third down either, and didn’t throw the ball effectively,” he said, “and you as a coach have to take the line that we have to work, and we have to get better, and Jalen Hurts needs all the reps he can get.”
Lombardi then finished that thought vis-à-vis the man who beat Hurts in the playoffs:
“If Tom Brady is out there taking reps, how is Jalen Hurts not?”
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