Reid Focuses On His First Offense In Preparation For The Packers

The Philadelphia Eagles second and third-teamers will take all of the plays on Thursday night against the New York Jets but they didn’t get much work in preparation for the game at the Eagles practice, yesterday.

Andy Reid may talk like everything is fine with his offense and there’s no reason for panic, but 80% of yesterday’s practice was focused on work by the first-team offense.  It was a no-nonsense practice and you could tell that the regular season was near.  It was 90 degrees out there and Reid was pushing the “O” to get their act together.

He and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg spent most of their time on the field in the ear of starting quarterback Kevin Kolb.   The fourth-year starting quarterback took about all the snaps and must have taken thirty plays in row from center.   Reid normally has the team work on mistakes on the first practice after a game, so they did that, then started preparing for the Green Bay Packers.

It wasn’t a play or two, of work on the Packers, the Birds went play after play after play.   They spent most of the segments of practice working with the number one offense against the Packers defense.   Reid and his coaches know that this offense has to step up their game.

Wide receiver DeSean Jackson wasn’t out there.  He still has soreness in his upper back and neck from the hit delivered by Chiefs rookie safety Eric Berry on Friday night.  Reid also let us know that Jackson was getting his wisdom teeth removed today.

Center Jamaal Jackson took most of the snaps at center with the first team in yesterday’s practice.  Hopefully, his knee won’t be too sore today and he’ll be able to continue his rehabilitation. The Birds weren’t working in pads, so he was able to get in there and get an idea of what he’s going to be seeing from the Packers.

It’s very important that Jackson is ready to go when the Birds play Green Bay.  The offensive line hasn’t done a good in picking up the blitz and Kolb doesn’t have a lot of experience in recognizing where the blitz is coming from.  This was exploited in the Chiefs game when the young signal caller seemed to be surprised by blitzers.

You can bet that defensive coordinators are going to blitz the Eagles.  Testing young signal-callers with blitzes is a given when young inexperienced QB’s begin to play, but they go into a frenzy with blitzes when a young quarterback seems to be vulnerable to them.  Guess what the Eagles are going to see.

Jackson would be a stabilizing factor if he were to start in the season’s first game.  He’s very sharp when it comes to recognizing blitzes and what adjustment will be needed to pick up the blitzers.  The rest of the offensive line has tremendous confidence in him making the right call, so I think it will help the guards and the tackles in their blocking.

Jackson is also very good with the silent count snap.  I think he would have helped Jason Peters when the crowd got loud in Kansas City.  Reid and Mornhinweg want him in there against the Packers in the worse way.

Starting left guard Todd Herremans left practice early after he turned his ankle.  It was the leg with the foot injury, it was the other leg.  Reid said it wasn’t serious and would be a problem going forward.

Defensive end Trent Cole walked around the practice field yesterday and wasn’t walking with a limp, so I he’ll definitely be ready to go for the opener.

I felt like telling second-year Eagles tight end Cornelius Ingram to take it in.  He was laboring during the workout and dragging his ailing leg.  Ingram just doesn’t seem to be coming back well from the knee injury.  All of the work has seemed to hurt his leg more than help it.  I don’t know that the Eagles can expect to get much out of him this season.