The Eagles are heading into two days with the Patriots that should feel a lot less like a tuneup and a lot more like a test.
On Wednesday and Thursday at the Patriots’ facility next to Gillette Stadium, the teams will meet for joint practices before Saturday’s preseason game. For Eagles players, it’s the only real chance to face another opponent before the regular season, since the starters won’t play in any preseason games.
That makes the work especially valuable - and, if history is any guide, a little volatile.
Joint practices between these teams have a habit of getting heated. There was the brawl in Foxborough two years ago, and before that the ugly scene in 2013 when Cary Williams and Patriots receiver Aaron Dobson were both pulled from practice by their coaches, Bill Belichick and Chip Kelly.
Mike Vrabel and Nick Sirianni will say the point is clean work and not fighting. Still, the fighting tends to find its way in.
“I come out and play my game and have fun and try to bring that little edge to where it can give a boost to the d-line or the whole defense or the whole team, at that,” Jalen Carter said.
“If I was to get in any altercations, I don't try to start them. I just finish them. And then I just move on with my day.”
For the Eagles, this week is about getting a different look after days of banging against the same jerseys in camp. Cam Jurgens said that change matters.
“Honestly, it's just nice not going against your own team every single day,” Cam Jurgens said. “So it's like a breath of fresh air. You're going to go and see another team and kind of work all your stuff.
“And it's always fun when you're going on the road with a team for a week, kind of bonding, coming together as a team. So that's the best part. You know, we're all there together, staying in a hotel and enjoying it.”
Jalen Hurts framed the sessions as a chance to keep stacking what the Eagles have built in camp.
“Great competition, new competition,” Jalen Hurts said.’ That's a really good team. They had a great run last year, so that'll be good for for us to go out there and compete against them.
“I just think (we need to) carry on the same things that we've been able to do to this point (in training camp), continue to exercise what we've learned, continue to improve, continue to coach and detail things out, get that alignment that we've been talking about all camp.”
The two practices also carry extra weight because the Eagles starters have no preseason game reps coming. That means the offense, in particular, gets its one shot to work against a defense that isn’t wearing midnight green.
Moro Ojomo said the point is to get away from the daily grind of camp and measure where the team stands.
“You know, at this point, you've been hitting each other so much,” Moro Ojomo said. “We want to kind of create that camaraderie and go vs. someone (else).
And ultimately, we want to get the train rolling. We're trying to have a great season.
And you start it off with a great joint practice vs. Boston.”
That same idea runs through the offense, where the sessions should give Jalen Hurts and the starters a chance to handle unscouted looks and adjust on the fly. The staff sees real value there, especially with a rookie play caller.
“The starters, they didn't get to work in the preseason [game] one,” Mannion said. “This is an opportunity for us to see them execute, get aligned, play with great fundamentals. It'll be a good opportunity for us to see them think on their feet, too.
"There could be some looks that you see in joint practices that are unscouted, but it's a great opportunity to see us kind of problem-solve as an offense, to see our players play with great football intelligence, react to maybe an unscouted look, see different fronts, different personnel for our offensive lineman to block a different rusher.
“There's a lot of advantages to the joint practice for the starters, especially [since] they didn't get that live action last week.”
The Eagles and Patriots have done this before, and plenty of times. This will be their fifth set of joint practices, with previous sessions in Philadelphia in 2021 and 2023 and in Foxborough in 2014 and 2024. More broadly, the Eagles’ history with joint work goes back to the 1980s, starting with the Lions at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., in 1985 and 1986, then picking back up in 1997 and 1998 with the Ravens and Bills at Lehigh.
Andy Reid never used joint practices in his 14 seasons with the Eagles. Chip Kelly brought them back, first with the Patriots in 2013 and 2014 and then with the Ravens in 2015.
Doug Pederson only did it twice, both at the NovaCare Complex, before Nick Sirianni made them a regular part of camp. This week will be his ninth set of joint practices, after work with the Patriots, Jets, Browns, Dolphins, Colts and Browns over the last four summers.
The Eagles will return home after the practices, then hold an open practice at the Linc on Aug. 25. Their only home preseason game comes Sept. 28 against the Bengals, with roster cuts to 53 following two days later.
Before all that, though, there’s a short week in Foxborough and the kind of work that can get chippy fast.
“Obviously going against another team, the expectations are we should go out there and whoop their ass,” Arnold Ebikitie said. “And I think the biggest thing for us is trying to see where we compare and come out the better team after those two days.”
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