June 03, 2026
The Philadelphia Eagles had a full-team practice Tuesday, the second media-attended practice of the spring. Last week's practice was forced inside the bubble due to rain. This practice was outside on a gorgeous day. As always, we have notes.
• As a reminder, OTAs are voluntary. Players not in attendance (in alphabetical order):
• Markel Bell got first team reps at RT with Lane Johnson absent. He also first-team reps last week. Assuming Lane is absent from all six OTA practices, Bell presumably got work with the 1's in all of them. That's good for him, in my opinion.
• First-round rookie WR Makai Lemon missed practice with a new injury. He had a sleeve on his right leg.
Per Jeff McLane (via Quinyon Mitchell), it's a hamstring injury. He'll be fine for training camp, but might miss a mandatory minicamp next week.
Lemon was engaged during practice. He had a play sheet in hand, and he stood on the line of scrimmage watching alignments and such on each play.
• Second-year LB Jihaad Campbell was present, but he too didn't practice, as expected.
• With Campbell out, Jeremiah Trotter Jr. is a first-team linebacker alongside Zack Baun. Trotter picked off Jalen Hurts on the first play during 7-on-7's. Hurts wanted Hollywood Brown on a go route down the sideline, but he was covered closely by Riq Woolen. Hurts came off of that option and threw to the middle of the field, but right to Trotter.
Hurts did test Woolen later with a deep ball to Brown, but Woolen had good coverage and the ball fell incomplete.
Brown ran a 4.27 coming out of college; Woolen ran a 4.26. So it was fun watching those two guys — with very different body types — racing down the sideline a few times.
• After the INT, I thought Hurts and the offense in general settled in and had a good day thereafter. During a goal line session, Hurts wound up and fired a laser to the back of the end zone, finding Dontayvion Wicks for a TD. That ball had some extra velocity on it. Hurts ripped it.
On the very next rep, Hurts threw to DeVonta Smith, who was running around the back of the end zone, with a step on Woolen. Hurts had a chance to fit that ball in, but Baun did a nice job of fading back into the throwing lane and narrowing the window. The ball glanced off Smith's hands for an incompletion. (Not a drop.)
Hurts threw a couple of nice deep balls. He found Saquon Barkley on a wheel route deep down the left sideline for a TD. Barkley beat Baun on the play. Hurts also threw a strike down the left sideline to an open Dallas Goedert, but Goedert dropped it.
• With A.J. Brown gone, Hurts is going to lean on Smith and Goedert. They both had catches over the intermediate-middle of the field from Hurts. Prediction: Smith will lead the team in targets this season by a mile. Assuming he is able to stay on the field, I wouldn't be surprised if Smith had like 40 or 50 more targets than the next closest guy.
• Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee made some nice throws today, too.
Dalton found Hollywood Brown in the back of the end zone, with Brown making a pretty toe-tap catch. Big Dom confirmed that Brown got both feet in.
As we showed in a player review in April, Brown has great sideline awareness and body control. Here's an outstanding TD reception by Brown in the back of the end zone against the Cowboys from last season:
He made several impressive sideline catches in 2025.
One thing I noticed about Dalton today is that he has a short, compact throwing motion, and quick release.
McKee made a nice throw to the front corner of the end zone for a TD to Danny Gray. It was an anticipation throw that came out before Gray turned to look for it, and without a lot of room for error with Tariq Castro-Fields in close coverage.
McKee also threw a strike to Gray on a play in which he was rolling to his left. That was a misdirection play with run action to the right that fooled the defense. Spoiler: Quarterbacks are going to be required to throw on the run in this offense.
• Dalton got more reps than McKee for the second straight media-attended practice. After last week's media-attended practice -- the second practice of OTAs -- the team made sure to note that McKee got the bulk of second-team reps during the first day of practice.
Tuesday's practice was once again the second of three OTA practices this week. It's unclear if McKee got the bulk of the second-team reps on Monday.
• Rookie TE Eli Stowers didn't stand out in any way during the media-attended practice last week, but he made a couple of catches on Tuesday. He caught a slant from Dalton, and made a contested catch in the middle of the field from Cole Payton.
• At the start of 11-on-11's, Jordan Davis bellowed to his defensive teammates, “I don’t give a f** if it’s (OTAs). Full speed!”
I remember during Davis' first few seasons in the NFL when he'd be gassed halfway through practices during training camp, and now he's urging teammates to go all out. So, you know, that kind of speaks to how far he has come along. My bet is that he'll be a captain this year.
• Cooper DeJean is still good. Sean Mannion called a play that looked like it was designed to go to Wicks in the front corner of the end zone, but DeJean was all over it, and Hurts had to look elsewhere.
• The defense is always ahead at this time of year. And in this case, the Eagles' defense is, you know, kinda awesome. So they won the day, in my opinion. But the offense had its moments too, and you can start to see receivers being schemed open instead of just having to constantly win on their own.
It's worth noting that the players all seem to be sincerely buying in on Mannion.
Jordan Mailata: “Sean [Mannion] is an evil genius. The guy knows ball. If I were to lock the three smartest people in the building in a room together, Sean would be there. He’d probably be by himself.” #Eagles pic.twitter.com/uiE7pNosNc
— EJ Smith (@EJSmith94) June 2, 2026
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