Eagles' defense gets physical in second day of training camp
Philadelphia- In the second day of training camp, there was a little physical competition with the Eagles' secondary.
Day 2 of training camp was a little physical between offense and defense. The coaches allowed a little physical play between the two sides and it seemed to ignite the players. When asked about the physical play, Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon had this to say about the action on the field.
"It's actually awesome because we, obviously, have an offensive head coach and he believes in it. A lot of people out there that are offensive head coaches, they don't want to see that. [Head Coach] Nick [Sirianni] believes that's the best thing for the team, the offense and the defense. So, he allows us to do that.Now, we got to clean it up because we don't want guys on the ground at times but on defense, we're going to play with a stinger and I'm not going to take that stinger away.
Last season, the Eagles' defense was very flawed and had huge holes that needed to be filled. They were ranked 21st in average years allowed and couldn't even cover a fly, if they wanted to. Philadelphia was ranked 29th in blitz rate. Seeing the Eagles in training camp, flying after the ball, forcing fumbles, and guarding wide receivers in tight coverage, may have given fans hope that this defense could be a top 10 defensive team this season.
Coach Gannon wants his players to be consistent and improve each week,so he is not worried about the ranking of defense.
"The coaches, that's our job. Get everybody under your watch better and just improve them a little bit. Some guys make a huge jump. Some of them really good, premium players, those vets, if we can just make that incremental jump, it helps everybody."