Eagles Training Camp Day 7 recap: Alonso still out, Shepherd hurt, Huff/Thurmond look good

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The Eagles have now completed seven full days of practice. So far, so good, at least for most people. This was the second open practice of training camp, which apparently had 43,000 fans there. Unfortunately, I was not one of them, but I’m going to gather some news and reports from people who were actually there.

Sam Bradford continues to show improvement and impress, there are strong battles at right guard and cornerback still going on, and nobody other than Travis Long has suffered a serious injury. JaCorey Shepherd got hurt today, but not sure how serious it is. More on that later. For now, here are some quick tweets on Bradford, because as usual, the writers (even Eliot Shorr-Parks again) had positive things to say.:

https://twitter.com/GarryCobb/status/630424942564106240

What would an Eagles practice be without talk of the quarterbacks? As the second tweet mentions though, this is all without any real rush on Bradford, so it obviously has to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it sounds like he had another strong day.

As for the other quarterbacks, it sounds like they were so-so. Mark Sanchez doesn’t seem to be standing out in any way, although he still does make a lot of good throws. Those terrible ones prove though that he really isn’t a starting quarterback in the NFL. Tim Tebow drew lots of huge reactions from the crowd whenever he did anything. Matt Barkley…well…this pretty much sums it up:

Who looked strong?

The number one name I kept seeing all day was Josh Huff. He seemed to make a lot of great catches and has been described as “ripped” multiple times. That’s definitely what you want to hear. I’m not sold on him having a breakout year in 2015, but any improvement is good.

That’s what I like to see. It sounds like Walter Thurmond had a nice day as well:

Good to see the versatile defensive back getting some action out there in camp.

Right Guard Update

In the past week, Matt Tobin, John Moffitt, Andrew Gardner and Julian Vandervelde have gotten first-team reps at right guard. It seems like Allen Barbre is guaranteed the left guard position, so he’s not part of the competition. Today, the reps went to…

Vandervelde has struggled to stay on the field the past few years due to injuries, so it’s interesting that they’re giving him first team reps. To me, it seems like no one has really stood out and Chip Kelly expanded the battle to allow some other guys to get in there. The preseason games should be a great place to see how these guys actually look.

Injury Report

There was a silence on why Jerome Couplin wasn’t practicing until yesterday when it was announced that he had his appendix removed. They said he would miss a week or so. As I’ve mentioned before, this is terrible luck for him. He needs to get on the field to show what he can do. Poor timing on the appendectomy. As for Kiko Alonso, he seems to still be moving through the concussion protocol, so nothing to worry about there. And DeMarco Murray finally practiced in full which was good to hear.

One guy to keep an eye on is JaCorey Shepherd, who was injured today in practice. He was hit by Darren Sproles in a drill and had to be carted off the field. In his absence, Jaylen Watkins got first-team snaps at the nickel cornerback position. There is no word as of now on the extent of Shepherd’s injury, but he was apparently seen riding in the front seat of the cart as opposed to the back and was bending his knee. Sounds like it may have just been precautionary, so I won’t speculate beyond that. In the following short video (at the 0:24 mark), you can see the injury occur:

https://twitter.com/TheMightyEROCK/status/630433294044295168

News and Notes

Cowboys fans had a banner flown over Eagles practice today, but it came during the National Anthem on Military Appreciation Day. Aka, not classy at all…Cody Parkey was booming 50-60 yard field goals in warm-ups…Taylor Hart has apparently made strides this offseason, as well as whole second unit on D-line…Brad Jones is practicing both at OLB and ILB, but Jordan Hicks is strictly an ILB…Donnie Jones dropped a pass from Bradford. There goes his chance at playing WR…G.J. Kinne practiced with running backs…Nolan Carroll got first-team reps at cornerback.

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