The Eagles were back for Day 2 of practices on Thursday and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio spoke to reporters before hitting the field. The DC talked about their plans for Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell as they head into their second season, as well as what he\u2019s seen from Sydney Brown, and how even he was surprised Jihaad Campbell was a participant on Day 1.<\/p>\n
He admitted that there are going to be a lot of interesting battles for some of the starting spots, and it\u2019s not something they\u2019ll sort out until much later in camp and up to the regular season.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what the DC had to say:<\/p>\n
On the plan for Cooper DeJean<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019d like to have [Cooper DeJean] be part of our base package, and I do believe he can play safety \u2014 it\u2019s new for him, so we\u2019re going to get him some work there. Then you\u2019ll see days in the base where he will play some corner. So, it\u2019s going to be an evolution. A lot of it will depend on how we do at those positions with the other guys. So, we\u2019ll make the best decision for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
On first-rounder Jihaad Campbell<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt was good to see [Jihaad Campbell] out there. Wasn\u2019t expecting him out there. The trainers have been telling me all spring that it would be some point in August when he\u2019d be out there. So, I\u2019m learning that our trainers like to under-state and over-achieve so they look good. But, it was good to get him out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Fangio went on to talk about how to know if someone at Campbell\u2019s position is ready for an expanded role. He explained that players need to know what to do, and be able to do it \u2014 assignment and technique \u2014, but the instincts part of it, and play recognition, diagnosing things and reaction time, is all very telling at that position.<\/p>\n
As for Campbell\u2019s development in all of those areas, Fangio noted that in the spring, he had Campbell off to the side doing drills but in Wednesday\u2019s practice, that was the rookie\u2019s first time against a live offense. The DC said that for what Campbell has been exposed to up to this point, he thought the LB did fine.<\/p>\n
Fangio also acknowledged that there will likely be opportunities for Campbell to get on the field his rookie season, and in certain packages they\u2019ll need him depending on how the final roster looks.<\/p>\n
On Quinyon Mitchell\u2019s development<\/p>\n
The DC talked about how they are moving Mitchell around a bit in camp, because there might be times in the season that they want to have him match with a specific receiver, or play left and right. It\u2019s something they plan to look at on a weekly basis in the season to see how best to use him.<\/p>\n
When asked what he considers when deciding to have a CB travel with a WR, and Fangio pointed to whether the receiver warrants extra attention and whether you have the CB to do it. He explained that there\u2019s a lot involved when doing that defensively, so it\u2019ll be an evolution.<\/p>\n
\n\u201c[Quinyon Mitchell] will be fine. He\u2019s got a really good work ethic. He\u2019s got tremendous pride, and always wants to do well. He\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
On Sydney Brown and the safety position<\/p>\n
\n\u201c[Sydney Brown] just needs to go out there and play good. <\/p>\n
So much of the safety position is just like ILB, where instincts and play recognition play a major part in how good you are. And, he just needs a lot of reps. He didn\u2019t start practicing last year until October, and I think at that point you\u2019re in game weeks, where you don\u2019t practice a whole lot, you don\u2019t have a lot of reps, so he didn\u2019t have a great opportunity last year because of his injury. Hopefully now, we\u2019ll see exactly what he can do.<\/p>\n
He had a good offseason, he did well yesterday, and we\u2019ll see how he does.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Other notables<\/p>\n
\n
- He talked about Jordan Davis\u2019 weight loss, noting that he had already lost quite a bit toward the second-half of last season, so it\u2019s nothing new and not something that should impact his performance.<\/li>\n
- Despite his comments on Jihaad Campbell\u2019s injury, the DC doesn\u2019t think the training staff is understating how long Nakobe Dean will be out.<\/li>\n
- Fangio fielded several questions about whether he felt like he would have to adjust his scheme coming off a Super Bowl<\/a> win, but ultimately he said that they are always self-scouting and finding new ways to do things, so it\u2019s no different this season than any of the season\u2019s prior.<\/li>\n
- The DC expects Milton Williams\u2019 reps from last season to be split up among the group, including Moro Ojomo getting more reps this year, and some of the other young guys.<\/li>\n
- Fangio said that these next few weeks will be interesting for rookie Mac McWilliams, noting that he\u2019s someone they feel can play nickel, and maybe corner, but he\u2019s got some versatility that they\u2019re excited about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eagles were back for Day 2 of practices on Thursday and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio spoke to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":91437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[931,20545,2625,28588,30900,60713,2556,9150,60712,204,7007,60714,1245,50,1232,58940,60715,34445,3003,196,62,13048,33078,67,132,68,18397],"class_list":{"0":"post-91436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-bleeding","10":"tag-brown","11":"tag-campbell","12":"tag-cooper","13":"tag-dejean","14":"tag-development","15":"tag-eagles","16":"tag-fangio","17":"tag-front-page","18":"tag-green","19":"tag-jihaad","20":"tag-nation","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-philadelphia-eagles-interviews-exclusive","24":"tag-philadelphia-eagles-training-camp","25":"tag-role","26":"tag-rookie","27":"tag-s","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-sydney","30":"tag-talks","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-vic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114914030093179947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}