The Eagles’ offense had a rough Day 5 at training camp, but the bigger takeaway wasn’t just that Jalen Hurts had a messy practice. It was that Philadelphia’s depth issues are showing up exactly where everyone feared they might.
SportsRadio 94 WIP’s Eliot Shorr-Parks said the offense was hit with seven penalties, plenty of incompletions and an interception from Hurts, who finished with a C+ grade and went 6-of-19. On paper, that looks ugly. In context, it was even more chaotic.
"Tuesday was one of the most choppy, discombobulated practices I’ve ever covered," Shorr-Parks said. "The offense performance was filled with backups and flags.
Both Devonta Smith and Makai Lemon missed practice due to hamstring injuries. Lane Johnson was once again an excused absence.
Add in a decision by the coaching staff to have a few periods with (basically) an entire backup offensive line, and there were stretches of practice where Jalen Hurts was on the field with 9 or 10 players that weren’t on the team last season. Those factors have to go into account when judging Hurts day."
That context matters. Smith and Lemon are important pieces in the receiver room, and Johnson remains a major part of what the Eagles do up front. Without them, Hurts was working through a practice that never really settled in.
And that’s where the real concern lives. The issue is not simply that Hurts looked off for a day. It’s that the depth behind the starters looks shakier than the Eagles would like.
The offensive line has been the biggest flashpoint. Philadelphia spent the offseason worried about what happens after the starting five, especially after last year’s injuries to Johnson, Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens exposed how thin things could get. The team tried to address that by drafting Markel Bell and Micah Morris, but the problems haven’t gone away just because new names were added.
When the line has been on the field in camp, the protection has still been shaky. One day last week, Hurts was sacked seven times. That’s the kind of number that jumps off the page no matter who is lining up.
At receiver, the concern is a little different. It’s less about raw depth and more about timing.
Hurts and Marquise Brown were not on the same page on the interception to safety Michael Carter II, and the overthrow that showed up in practice fits the same theme. With so many new pieces around him, those kinds of mistakes are going to happen during camp.
So no, this isn’t a reason to panic over one practice. But it is a reminder that the offseason questions around the Eagles’ depth are now visible on the field. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed immediately, but it’s clearly something Philadelphia has to keep watching as camp moves on.
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