Pederson Backs Bradford, Leaves Wiggle Room For Wentz

The rumbling storms didn’t help his cause any, but Doug Pederson wasn’t getting any sleep last night anyway.

Today was his first day of training camp as a head coach, and he likened himself to a little kid. “Just love being around the guys, being out on the grass and playing some ball,” he said.

The practice itself wasn’t overly stimulating. With most of the vets set to report on Wednesday afternoon, this was a chance for the quarterbacks, rookies and a handful of veterans to get some on-field learning in before the action picks up. (The first full-team session is Thursday, and the pads go on Saturday.) It did give us an opportunity to see Carson Wentz spin the ball again, and yep, he still looks the part. He aired it out a good bit (we’ve seen plenty of that out of him so far) and tossed a couple of pretty ones to Marcus Johnson and Xavier Rush. During 7-on-7s, he zipped a deep out to Cayleb Jones that was right on the money and created a little buzz on the sidelines.

He’s likely still a ways away from seeing the field in a regular-season game, though, as Pederson reiterated following practice Monday.

“I’ve said all along Sam’s the guy. And then you’ve got to get through four games and a lot of preseason, and going into September 11, Sam’s the guy, Sam’s the guy,” said Pederson. “Chase [Daniel] is our number two and Carson is number three.”

Pederson, however, left himself some wiggle room when asked how hard it will be to red-shirt Wentz for an entire season.

“Well, we don’t know it will be his entire rookie year,” he replied. “We can’t speculate that far out, but going into the season there’s a good chance it starts that way.”

Pederson said he is very happy with where Bradford left off in OTAs and where he is now. He hasn’t officially decided on how he’ll split the reps between the QBs, but did say the twos and threes will get the bulk of them early before giving way to the starters.

Pederson was asked what stood out about Wentz when the two reconnected after the break.

“Just the fact that he came in ready to go. You just love everything about this kid: his energy, his work ethic. It’s just little things now, detail things in his footwork and his drop, progressions, where his eyes [are]. Those are the things that in the National Football League from a quarterback standpoint really become very important on game day, and those are the things that we’ve gotta continue to work with him now throughout camp.”

Pederson on Agholor

Pederson said he has not spoken to Nelson Agholor about the sexual assault allegations, which ultimately did not result in any criminal charges, but will have a private conversation with him when he arrives to camp.

“I’m still not gonna comment too much on it,” said Pederson. “I just know this: we all make mistakes, we learn from them, we move on and we just look forward to him getting to camp and getting ready to go.”