The Eagles were back at work on Friday, holding their first real practice of training camp on after a short day of work on Thursday.
Here are all the news and notes you need to know from Friday's hour-and-a-half session:
Carson Wentz: Friday was quarterback Carson Wentz's first chance to carry over his outstanding play from OTAs and minicamp into training camp with the Eagles holding their first real team drills. He did just that.
Wentz was razor sharp to start the day, hitting his first seven passes in a seven-on-seven drills, connecting with all of his top weapons on offense — tight end Zach Ertz, receiver Alshon Jeffrey, tight end Dallas Goedert and receiver DeSean Jackson. One of Wentz's best completions came in the first team session, as he found Jackson cutting across the field to the left sideline. Although it wasn't a perfectly thrown ball, Jackson did a great job adjusting to it in midair and coming down with it.
Wentz's worst throw of the day was towards Jackson in the second team session. Jackson had a step on his man down the left sideline, but Wentz put too much under it, sailing it about two yards ahead of his receiver. Outside of that completion, however, the only other ball Wentz threw that hit the ground was dropped by receiver Marken Michel. Overall it was a strong day of practice for Wentz.
Stats: 10/12, 0 TDs, 0 INT, 13 reps
Grade: A
Nate Sudfeld: This is a huge training camp for quarterback Nate Sudfeld, who is in prime position to be Wentz's top backup — arguably the best backup quarterback job in the NFL. Sudfeld is going to be given every chance to win the job, but he didn't do much with his reps on Friday. Sudfeld had tow ugly throws to tight end Joshua Perkins, and didn't really test the defense much, mostly checking the ball down. He was also the victim of a bad snap, which killed one of the only nine reps he got. Sudfeld has never really been a strong practice player, and when he was the third-string quarterback, that didn't matter much. Now that he is one play away from taking over for Wentz, he is going to need to show more in the practices to make the Eagles confident he is the man for the job.
Stats: 6/8, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, 9 reps
Grade: B-
Cre'von LeBlanc: The Eagles were without cornerback Cre'von LeBlanc on Friday. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz confirmed after practice that LeBlanc was absent due to an injury, which the team was in the process of doing tests on. How long LeBlanc will be out isn't clear, but with LeBlanc sidelined the Eagles were without three of their top six cornerbacks on Friday during team drills. For all of the talk about how deep the cornerbacks are, days like Friday are exactly why they would be wise to hold onto all of their cornerbacks — especially given the injury issues all of them besides Rasul Douglas and Avonte Maddox have had.
DeSean Jackson: Jackson has been extremely active on the field since re-joining the Eagles and that continued on Friday. Jackson made the best catch of the day, as mentioned above, when he twisted his body in the air to come down with a Wentz pass over the middle of the field. The Eagles' cornerbacks have had trouble keeping up with Jackson, who has done a great job getting open. Jackson is doing much more than going deep on offense, as the majority of his catches have actually been over the middle of the field. It is clear that Doug Pederson is going to be very creative with how he uses Jackson this season, and it wouldn't be surprising to see his catch total be much higher than the 41 he caught last season.
Joshua Perkins: Tight end Joshua Perkins has been getting a fair amount of reps with the second-team offense during the early days of camp, and you have to wonder if he is much closer to making the roster than everyone thinks. Perkins has position versatility, as he played both tight end and receiver for the Eagles last season. Also, with the Eagles expected to play a ton of two-tight end sets this season, having four tight ends on the roster might make sense incase one were to suffer an injury. Perkins won't overtake Richard Rodgers, but there might be a battle between Perkins and one of the receivers on the bottom of the depth chart for one of the final roster spots.
You can reach Eliot Shorr-Parks on Twitter at @EliotShorrParks or email him at esp@94wip.com!
