The first open organized team activity of the season featured a lot of new faces in prominent roles and several more familiar ones absent.
Eagles practice observations: Bryce Huff’s absence; cornerback and safety competitions; Cooper DeJean to the outside? The first open organized team activity of the season featured a lot of new faces in prominent roles and several more familiar ones absent.
Andrew Mukuba, , Safety for the Philadelphia Eagles, warming up during practice at the NovaCare Complex in Philadelphia, Pa., on Wednesday, May 28, 2025.The Eagles opened their second organized team activity of the offseason to reporters on Wednesday at NovaCare Complex. Here are my takeaways from the practice:wasn’t at practice. In fact, the defensive end hasn’t attended Eagles’ workouts this entire spring, an NFL source said. That doesn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise since he is unlikely to be part of the Eagles’ plans for 2025. General managerHuff is still under contract and is owed $16.75 million in guaranteed money this season. Workouts are voluntary, but his absence suggests it was mutually agreed upon. The Eagles don’t want him getting injured in case they can still unload him after June 1 — when it would make more fiscal sense — and he certainly doesn’t want to be where he isn’t exactly wanted.Can the Eagles trade him? Probably not with that price tag. Maybe they eat a large portion of his salary just to cut bait. Or they swap “your underperforming, overpaid free agent” for mine. Or maybe they suffer some injuries at edge rusher this spring and have no choice but to have him in uniform when training camp starts. But my guess is Roseman is eventually forced to waive one of his few bad moves from last offseason. I assume this will be the last time I write about Huff in my observations this spring, but his early mention here shows why it might make sense to move on sooner rather than later. He’s a distraction from the otherwise positive momentum the Eagles have going on. I’ll have more on who was at edge rusher later in my notes, but there were a few other healthy no-shows at — again, voluntary! — practice: wide receiverSmith and Johnson likely took a “veteran day.” They’ve been participants in other offseason workouts, from what I’ve been told. Blankenship was dealing with a minor medical issue, a source said, but he should be fine. were spotted leaving the indoor facility before practice, but returned late into the session after presumably receiving treatment. The Eagles haven’t given much information on Campbell’s timetable following offseason surgery, but the expectation is that the team’s top draft pick should be able to practice in some form by camp. Dean’s return from the patellar tendon tear he suffered at the start of the playoffs remains unclear. Both hung with inside linebackers coachOK, enough with roll call. Let’s get to positional competitions and the depth chart. It’s super early, butgot some reps with the ones, too, as he and Jackson are likely the top two candidates for that position. It may be just a part-time role, however, if slot cornerbackstarts on the outside in base personnel. He took a few snaps there, and I think it’s only a matter of time before the former second-rounder ends up outside. It may be another year, and he may always ping-pong between inside and outside, but it makes sense to eventually have DeJean on the field for as many snaps as possible.rather early in that positional competition a year ago. But with Becton gone to the Los Angeles Chargers, now may finally be the time for Steen. He won’t be handed the job.Here’s how the rest of the offensive line depth chart looked based upon team drills. Regular starters are in parentheses, and rookies in bold, from left to right:Blankenship’s absence meant that both safety spots were filled by nonstarters from last season. There was a lot of shuffling, butBrown and Mukuba project to be the main two combatants to fill Gardner-Johnson’s vacancy. Neither did much on the ball, but both players kept the deep middle protected with quarterbackoften forced to check down. I’ll have more on Hurts’ reluctance to throw it deep later on. It should be noted that Sam had a pass breakup when he ripped the ball from tight endat inside linebacker. Depending upon how Dean recovers and Campbell adapts to the pros, Trotter could open the season as a starter. He saw a lot of action with Hurts feeding his running backs.had some grabs, as well. He missed all of the 2024 season due to a neck injury, but looked fairly nimble running against air. Practices with contact will offer more information on his health, but thewas held out of 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills. He tore his tricep in the Super Bowl and probably has yet to be cleared. A year ago, the Eagles’ top four edge rushers at this stage were, Huff, and Smith. The first two are gone via free agency and retirement, respectively. Huff’s absence was explained above. So that leaves Smith as the top returnee of the group.returns after a promising rookie season that saw his production increase the more time he was given. He was first up at edge rusher opposite free agentwould probably disapprove of putting his best defensive player in bubble wrap until the Sept. 4 opener, but the guess here is that Carter will practice less than he did ahead of his first two seasons.didn’t miss a beat in his first open practice since he signed a restructured contract following an offseason of uncertainty. He was Hurts’ favorite target and caught more than a handful of passes on a variety of routes. Goedert later acknowledged that he thought he could end up traded or cut in the months leading up to his return. With the Eagles unwilling to pay the remaining, non-guaranteed $14.25 million on his contract, Goedert was given the chance to shop his services to other teams. There were offers, but when the draft came and went without the Eagles drafting a tight end, the two sides worked on a new deal that trimmed Goedert’s salary to $10 million with a possible $1 million more in incentives. “There were definitely days that were filled with emotion, just kind of sat on the couch and stared at the TV blankly like, ‘What’s going to happen?’” Goedert said. Well, he’s back, and if Goedert can avoid injury, there’s no reason to think he can’t be as productive as he enters his eighth season. Backup Calcaterra might not have been able to hang on to that earlier pass vs. Sam, but he ran a crossing route that seemed to switch up Trotter, who impeded his path. Calcaterra made a holding sign after the play, but there weren’t any referees on hand to throw a flag.was another starter held out of most drills. As the Eagles saw last season in Tampa, no Brown and Smith can make the pass offense less vertical, and that was certainly the case for the first-team offense. Hurts was sharp and hit on most of his attempts, butwas essentially the only receiver he hooked up with on more than one occasion. Dotson did well to work back to his quarterback with Mitchell in coverage on one play. Second-year receiverhad a drop, but he beat Ringo with a double move on the next play for a nice gain downfield.had his squad practice for approximately an hour and 20 minutes. … The Eagles have four more OTAs . They are required to have one more open to reporters — likely Tuesday. A one-day mandatory minicamp is slated for June 10.
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