FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Saquon Barkley made it pretty clear after two days of work against the Patriots: he’s ready to move on.
The Eagles running back said Thursday he’s had enough of the joint practices in New England, and his problem isn’t with the Patriots or the area itself. It’s the setup.
“I hate joint practices, to be honest,” Barkely said after Thursday’s session against the Patriots
Barkley’s complaint was simple: the extra work can turn messy fast, and the good stuff gets lost in the noise.
“More times than not nothing good comes out of it,” Barkley said. “When you have the work it’s good, but then you get the pushing, the shoving and someone says this about you and it’s ‘I don’t know about that but you’re this.’
It’s immature when you get to that level. I have to do a better job, too, because I’m a little troublemaker sometimes, but I was good this week.”
Jordan Mailata saw it the same way. The Eagles offensive tackle said the joint work can get in the way of actual improvement, especially once tempers flare and the sessions stop feeling like football practice.
On Thursday, the Eagles and Patriots were shoving after plays, and Mailata said that kind of back-and-forth hurt Philadelphia’s offensive line.
“There were less fights,” Mailata said about Wednesday’s practice. “The fighting, we gotta cut that out because it killed the momentum. Then both sides are now amped up and now we’re not thinking about our assignment, we’re thinking about roughing the next guy, which is great, but not effective in our scheme and concept of things.
“That’s why I think (we struggled), there were no fights yesterday, it’s a pretty clean practice, and we were able to build on that momentum. If it was two yards, three yards, each yard kept leading to more yards. We weren’t effective today because we decided to put the boxing gloves on.”
The second practice against New England turned chippy, with Mailata, Barkley and Lane Johnson all getting caught up in the scrums.
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Douglas made the most of the spotlight, winning all three of their 1-on-1 reps by snapping off sharp cuts and exploding into separation, and the clip moved quickly through social media as Eagles followers reacted to what they saw. It is still only a practice setting, of course, but when a player with DeJeans reputation looks out of sync in a widely shared drill, it is the kind of thing that tends to linger until the pads come on and the matchup gets another chance to play out. [Read more 🡒]
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Former Penn State Standout Sees Strong Eagles Camp Cut Short
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Instead, Philadelphia moved Castro-Fields to injured reserve, which ends his training camp and likely his season before the real evaluation could even finish. The Eagles also waived/injured wide receiver Johnny Wilson while adding center Zeke Correll and wide receiver Brandon Hayes, a reminder of how quickly roster opportunities can shift at this stage of camp, especially for players trying to survive on the margins. [Read more 🡒]