August 05, 2025
Colleen Claggett/For PhillyVoice
Eagles receiver Jahan Dotson catches a ball during drills at the start of training camp back on July 23, 2025 at the NovaCare Complex.
As the Eagles ramp down from Monday's practice in pads and prepare for Thursday's preseason opener against the Bengals, they held a lighter session Tuesday, their last practice before the game. They have a walkthrough Wednesday. They spent most of the light session working on red zone drills pitting the first offense against the first defense.
The ball found the end zone quite a few times, but that's not to suggest the defense didn't come up with its fair share of breakups, takeaways and pressures.
As we do for each practice, we give out game balls. Here are today's recipients.
Is A.J. Brown still sitting out? Couldn't tell by the way Dotson and Smith were carving up the secondary throughout the practice, each helping Jalen Hurts and the offense move the ball with efficiency and with some big-play flair. They can split the game ball. With Brown still shelved by the hamstring, the pass offense has leaned heavier on a top-three rotation of Smith, Dotson and typically second-year pro Johnny Wilson, who's seeing a good amount of first-team reps.
Hurts was actually headed for the game ball until he made a very poor throw of his back foot intended that was very underthrown and easily picked off by Cooper DeJean. Earlier in the game, Hurts had another throw under pressure nearly picked by Kelee Ringo. But otherwise, Hurts threw some dimes, and Smith or Dotson were often on the receiving end.
In a red zone drill, Dotson was split to Hurts' left side but made a nice cut to the right corner of the end zone as Hurts was backpedaling to buy time and then jumped to catch Hurts' bullet as he tiptoed the back line on the way down for the touchdown. Dotson's comfort in the offense in his first full camp with the Eagles, and Hurts' comfort with Dotson, appears to be growing. Doston possibly added another touchdown later on a corner route that he caught in front of Cooper DeJean on the left side right at the pylon, which got knocked over, so let's just go ahead and give Dotson the TD.
Smith, who is unequivocally the best route-runner among Eagles receivers, showed the benefits of his ability to make razor-sharp cuts early in his route to separate quickly and make for an easy target. Early in practice, with the ball at the defense's 10-yard line, Smith sprung open quickly at the left side and momentarily bobbled the ball – rare for him – before securing the ball as he fell into the end zone. Later, Hurts detected Smith mismatched against zone-droppng EDGE Josh Uche along the right side and hit Smith in stride, allowing the receiver to turn on the jets and speed down the field for more yards.
Honorable mentions: Elijah Cooks and Darius Cooper continue to get plenty of targets on the second-team offense and keep making plays. Cooks cooked Eli Ricks, catching a slant and reversing direction on a dime to get to the front corner of the end zone. Cooper caught a touchdown pass over Mac McWilliams.
The Eagles were able to pressure Hurts into some quick releases and some errant passes. The primary culprits on many of those hurried throws were Ojomo, who provided an interior burst, and Hunt, who was fast around the edge – so another split game ball.
Ojomo notched at least one "sack," splitting between two interior linemen, and pushed the pocket quite a bit while Hunt's speed forced Hurts to have to move off his spot more than once. Outside of some Josh Uche flashes, Eagles EDGEs haven't really supplied a ton of consistent pressure throughout camp, so it was good to see Hunt flash. He had struggled on Monday in his 1-on-1s against Jordan Mailata.
Ojomo has had a very solid camp so far and looks poised to handle the workload that Milton Williams occupied last season. He's built differently than Williams but Ojomo's long arms and fast feet are real weapons for him, especially in the pass rush.
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