What They’re Saying About The Eagles

Here’s a roundup of what the local and national media are saying about the Eagles:

Peter King of MMQB.com paid Chip Kelly a visit and asked him about the negative perceptions he’s dealt with this offseason:

Then [Kelly] quoted two people. He said Phil Jackson once said that if you want to be liked, don’t get into coaching. “Then there’s the Mike Schmidt quote,” Kelly said.

Which one?

“He said, ‘Philadelphia is the only town where you can experience the thrill of victory, then the agony of reading about it the next day,’” Kelly said. “It’s part of the territory, and rightly so. These people [media people] are awesome. It’s an unbelievably competitive market. New York has two teams so they gotta go to the Giants and the Jets. Here, there’s one team.”

King also spoke with Sam Bradford, and the two talked about the quarterback’s rehab process:

“There’s standard rehab, where you have a sheet of what you have to accomplish every day in terms of exercise and rehab. Bill Knowles’ deal is, ‘Let’s play games.’ One day he said, ‘Let’s play badminton.’ We warmed up playing badminton. And then every day we were out here playing badminton. No net. He would hit it high and make me change directions and run. He throws all these PE games at you. You don’t think about it being rehab until you look and see the positions your body’s been in, and you think, That’s pretty close to the positions and movements you’ve got to make as a quarterback.”

Not great news on the Earl Wolff front. From NJ.com.

Wolff was inactive in the Eagles 36-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, and revealed after the game that he is dealing with the same knee injury that caused him to miss half of last season.

“It’s just been getting worse and worse every day,” Wolff said to NJ Advance Media. “It got to the point where I couldn’t walk after practice.”

After suiting up for the first six practices of training camp, Wolff has been in-and-out of practice, and missed the team’s last practice.

Wolff, who was walking with a noticeable limp, said he did not remember a specific play that re-aggravated the injury.

The pain, however, leaves the remainder of training camp in doubt.

Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer was impressed with wide receiver Nelson Agholor‘s playmaking ability in the rookie’s debut:

Agholor might not be the fastest – he ran a 4.44-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine – but he’s fast enough and seems to have an extra gear that translates on the field. His teammates say they’ve seen it since the former Southern Cal star arrived in May.

“When you talk about running straight forward, my boy Nelson goes zero to one hundred,” receiver Jordan Matthews said. “He does it day in and day out. He is explosive in practice. That cat has speed. He runs on every single catch, so it’s no surprise when he takes a hitch to the house like that.”

CSN Philly’s Reuben Frank wrote about a far more comfortable Marcus Smith after Sunday’s game:

Smith, so disappointing as a rookie last year, had an encouraging preseason debut Sunday afternoon, and although the official stats aren’t overwhelming — one tackle, one pass knockdown — he was in on at least two other tackles, was solid in his pass coverage and got some good pressures on the line of scrimmage.

He had no mental breakdowns, and considering where he was last year — often looking lost — this was an enormous improvement.

“It’s nice to go in film and know that maybe you made some mistakes but just not be as mad as you were a year before,” Smith said. “I just felt more comfortable out there.”

Jimmy Kempski of PhillyVoice handed out 10 awards after the preseason opener:

5. The Mega-Sproles Award: Kenjon Barner

In what was an insanely dumb punt considering the situation (about 20 seconds left in the first half), Colts punter Pat McAfee out-kicked his coverage on a 65 yard bomb, and Barner took it back 92 yards for a punt return TD. Barner broke a tackle, and made a few guys miss along the way. He kinda looked like a beefier version of Darren Sproles.

Tommy Lawlor of IgglesBlitz.com wrote about the good and the bad from the preseason opener, including safety Ed Reynolds:

On a day when the Eagles scored 36 points and Tim Tebow ran for a TD, who would have guessed that Ed Reynolds would be the talk of the game? Really good showing. Reynolds picked off two passes. He broke up another one. He made an impressive tackle on a kickoff. Reynolds is at his best playing back and attacking the ball. He was really good at that while at Stanford. We didn’t see much of that at all last summer. Reynolds made plays today and they weren’t just luck. He made them the way he did at Stanford. Reynolds needs to build on this game to really make it matter.