August 01, 2026
Day 3 of Philadelphia Eagles training camp is in the books, and it was a hot, long practice. There are still no pads, but there was some fun action today.
• Jalen Hurts was "sacked" repeatedly on Day 3. Jalyx Hunt has been awesome on the edge so far this camp, and the three interior guys — Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, and Moro Ojomo — have been consistently disruptive. Hunt and Carter were a couple of our Heroes of the Day.
Hunt was widely considered a developmental player coming out of college, but he became a contributor in the back half of his rookie season in 2024, and he had a breakout season of sorts in 2025. He has a chance to become a star.
• Jalen Carter was in the backfield quite a bit as well, and he had a nice batted pass, an underrated part of his game. He had seven batted passes in 2025, and six in 2024. He also sniffed out a screen to Saquon Barkley that went nowhere. That's also an underrated part of his game. He's probably a tough guy to fool on screens because he normally gets a ton of attention, so when he's unblocked he knows something is up.
• One player along the Eagles' front who has had a slow start is Nolan Smith. In a red zone situation, he had an angle on Hurts, who was running with the football, but Hurts was able to easily beat Smith to the front pilon.
Smith ran a 4.39 (!) 40 at the Combine, and that speed has shown up in games.
Smith looks a little bigger this season, which I understand because he's a violent player and a little more heft might keep him healthy. But if indeed he is bulked up, did he lose some speed as a result?
It's also probably a little alarming that he is still wearing a big arm brace.
• Getting back to Hurts, I thought there were some times where he held onto the ball a long time. But he also made a few nice plays. His best play of the day was when he stepped up into the pocket then rolled to his left and threw a touch pass (almost a little teardrop) into the arms of DeVonta Smith, who was being trailed by Mac McWilliams.
• Andrew Mukuba read a route by Makai Lemon over the middle of the field, broke on it, and nearly had an INT, but he arrived at the ball at the same time as Lemon, resulting in a solid collision. There was some debate on the sideline among the media types whether Mukuba committed pass interference. I thought that regardless of whether he made contact with Lemon before the ball arrived he was going for the ball all the way. Good play, IMO.
Mukuba's highlight reel from college is full of plays where he sees the field well and anticipates where the ball is going:
I like the start to camp that Mukuba has had.
• A less debatable pass interference penalty was committed by Jakorian Bennett, who was beaten down the field by Quez Watkins, so he basically dove and tried to tackle him lol. Bennett did at least have a nice pass breakup on a pass intended for Johnny Wilson. Wilson caught the ball momentarily, but Bennett ripped it out.
• Wilson is in something of an "undercard" camp battle with Darius Cooper. The winner of that battle so far is Cooper, who had a few catches today, including one on a slant route in traffic.
• Rookie QB Cole Payton threw three INTs on Day 2. Would he be gun shy in his next practice? Nope! On his first rep on Day 3, he let it rip deep down the field, with Danny Gray making the reception. I thought it was noteworthy that Sean Mannion spent some extra time after practice coaching up Payton, who was barking out cadences and take snaps from under center.
• In the QB2 battle, I thought Andy Dalton had a better day than Tanner McKee. Dalton had a few nice reps:
Meanwhile, McKee had a bad throw to Eli Stowers that was nearly picked off by Mac McWilliams. Stowers had to turn into a DB on the play so McWilliams didn't grab it.
• It's very early in camp, but I haven't seen Eli Stowers or Makai Lemon do anything impressive so far.
Hurts fired a deep ball to Lemon today, but he was pretty easily blanketed by Cooper DeJean and the pass fell incomplete.
One note on Stowers is that he was working on blocking with the offensive line while other tight ends like Dallas Goedert, Johnny Mundt, Grant Calcaterra, and Cameron Latu were doing route-runner drills with the quarterbacks. That makes sense, since blocking is the more underdeveloped part of his game.
• Dontayvion Wicks had a nice catch for the second straight practice. Today's was a reception on a slant with Michael Carter in close coverage. I thought he showed strong hands with Carter swiping at the football post-catch.
• Ty Robinson is still working with the developmental players, but he had a nice pass rush today that forced Payton off of his spot and into a Gabe Hall "sack."
• Braden Mann was crushing punts today. He had more than 20 reps. Great distance, and some occasional 5+ second hang times. He was also hitting some purposeful line drives down the sideline, which seemed like they'd be effective. Mann is a much better "open field" punter than he is a "pin deep" punter. The former is more important, in my opinion, because if you get in close enough where you'd be "pin deep" punting, you should be probably going for it a lot of the time anyway.
• During those punting sessions, there were a solid handful of high snaps from undrafted rookie long snapper Rocco Underwood.
• Undrafted rookie OG Jaeden Roberts suffered what looked like a gruesome lower leg injury on the final rep of practice.
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