Another Senior Bowl week has come and gone.
This was my second time in Mobile, Alabama, for the annual practice week leading up to the game Saturday. I was joined by hundreds of NFL scouts, coaches, player agents and media members.
The Senior Bowl week is truly a unique event and Mobile is a unique town. This year, the Senior Bowl did away with having one practice at a nearby high school, so all six practices were held at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
I flew into Mobile on Monday night, left Thursday night and didn’t get much sleep in between. So my apologies if some of this doesn’t make sense.
Here are 20 observations from this week at Senior Bowl.
1. I have no idea if Joe Douglas will be the Eagles’ savior. But here’s what I do know: Douglas has been evaluating football players for a long time and learned from the right people. Anyone who cut their teeth under Ozzie Newsome in Baltimore comes with a certain pedigree.
The Eagles hired Douglas in May and since then, I’ve had casual conversations with him, but Wednesday was the first time he spoke to the collected media. I came away very impressed. I think the most impressive thing was the way he instantly delivered scouting reports on a few players we asked about. I have a feeling if we sat there all day and asked him about every player on each roster, he’d have some information to give.
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2. While I didn’t see Jeff Lurie or the coaching staff at the first day of practices Tuesday, they were there Wednesday. Lurie, Doug Pederson and Howie Roseman all stood together on the sideline as practice kicked off, and when the North receivers got into the individual portion of practice, the trio walked around the field and parked in front of them. There were a couple receivers on that North squad the Eagles could certainly use.
3. How involved is Lurie in football matters? That’s a big question, especially after ESPN reported his involvement has increased. I tend to believe that’s generally true, but he’s still a long way from being Jerry Jones. Taking control of the organization and being in the loop with football matters aren’t mutually exclusive from allowing the personnel decision-makers to do their jobs. I think he can do both.
4. Even if the Eagles fill some of the void at receiver through free agency, there will still be a chance they should draft a receiver or two. The guys who were most impressive this week in Mobile were Cooper Kupp, Zay Jones, Ryan Switzer and Taywan Taylor.
A little more about each one.
Kupp is from Eastern Washington, where he put up big numbers against FCS competition (see story). This week, he claimed he didn’t have anything to prove. Maybe that’s the way he saw it, but I think he proved he was one of the best WRs at Senior Bowl. He was always open and caught everything thrown his way. He doesn’t have breakaway speed, but said he wants to run a 4.4 at the combine. We’ll see.
If we’re talking about production, the other North kid, Jones, had it. He’s the FBS career catches record holder and he continuously made plays all week.
Switzer, from North Carolina, is just 5-foot-9, but is crazy quick. He’s going to be a handful if he gets put in the right position at the next level. To me, he’s clearly a slot guy, but a very good one. He’s one of the shiftiest receivers I have seen in a while.
And perhaps Taylor is the best among the group. He’s a favorite of NBC Sports draft analyst Josh Norris and had a great week. His athleticism showed up and his speed is real.
5. I had a chance to catch up with Villanova defensive lineman Tanoh Kpassagnon on Tuesday morning before the first practice. As an FCS standout, Kpassagnon said this week was one of the most important of his life (see story). With Kpassagnon measuring in at 6-7, 280 pounds, I couldn’t help but think about Baylor defensive end Shawn Oakman, who was at the Senior Bowl last year. Oakman had the size, but when he got to the field, he was completely overmatched and pushed around. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case with Kpassagnon and I was right. He more than held his own. He was a real force during the week and the Eagles took notice; they met with him.
"The first thing that jumps out is he's 6-7 and 280 pounds and he's cut out of rock,” Eagles vice president of player personnel Douglas said. “He’s as body beautiful as it gets.”
6. So last year I found out that Mardi Gras actually started in Mobile, not New Orleans. This is a fact the locals enjoy reciting. It just so happened that the hotel I booked this year was right next to the Mobile Mardi Gras Museum. I didn’t have a lot of down time, but I did carve out an hour to check it out. They have some real-size floats, but the coolest part were the pulls that the Mardi Gras royalty wear. The different organizations in town name their king and queen each year and then have a ball. Men wear tails and women wear floor-length gowns. The king and queen wear pulls, which are basically like giant capes that they drag behind them. And they’re heavy. They weigh around 40 pounds and the heaviest one there was 80 pounds (according to Jennie the Tour Guide, the girl who wore it was 114 pounds and it needed to be outfitted with ball bearings to be able to move). They also cost a small fortune because of the crystals. The tour guide wouldn’t say how much, but she said about the cost of a nice car.
The place is worth a stop:
7. We already talked about receivers, so let’s talk about the Eagles’ other biggest need: cornerback. There were plenty of really good ones in Mobile this week (see story). The best of the best was probably LSU’s Tre’Davious White, who was really impressive before getting hurt Wednesday. In addition to White, there were a few other really good corners in Alabama this week: Tennessee’s Cam Sutton, Michigan’s Jourdan Lewis and Miami’s Corn Elder. I wanted to see Colorado’s Chidobe Awuzie, but he needed to back out with a lingering turf toe injury.
8. If you ever go to Mobile, Alabama, eat seafood. It’s everywhere, it’s cheap and it’s incredible. This was just my second trip to Senior Bowl, but I got talking to a few coaches and personnel guys who have gone every year for many years and everyone has their favorite spots they go to every year. For the second straight year, I went to Felix’s Fish Camp and got the barbecue shrimp, which comes with a dentist-chair bib that the waitress ties around your neck. Sorry, Derrick Gunn, I wasn’t able to bring home any crab soup for you.
9. The Temple kids. I think there’s a very good chance both of them will be drafted within the first three rounds. Most people I spoke with generally agreed that these two are better prospects than the Temple kids from a year ago.
We’ll start with Haason Reddick, who was tremendous this week. Reddick came to Senior Bowl and had a position switch to inside linebacker. He really seemed to enjoy playing in a new spot and looked great. He’ll likely fit in the NFL as an inside 'backer with the ability to get to the QB as a blitzer. I think he turned a lot of heads; he was a star of the week.
Meanwhile, Dion Dawkins had a position switch, too, and looked really good. After playing tackle at Temple, he was listed as a guard on the Senior Bowl roster. I talked to him Tuesday morning and he said he didn’t care where he played, that it wasn’t up to him. During the week, he played both spots and didn’t look out of place inside.
10. I found it interesting how Roseman talked about Jason Kelce on Wednesday. He praised the two-time Pro Bowl center, but when I asked him if he expected Kelce to be back next season, he was noncommittal (see story). Roseman’s reason was that if he answered a question about Kelce’s future, he’d have to answer questions about other guys. A few weeks ago, he made it pretty clear the Eagles wanted to have Jason Peters back.
Roseman talked about the tough decisions facing the franchise in terms of expensive aging veterans. The Eagles can cut a few and save a ton of cap space. They’ve been having those conversations for a while now. “It’s our job to make tough decisions and make sure they’re not emotional,” he said.
If you remember, last offseason was all about recreating the family atmosphere within the organization after Chip Kelly made the building feel gray. It was probably a good idea given where the organization was, but the problem with a family atmosphere is it’s a lot harder when these decisions need to be made. How do you tell the kids that Uncle Jason and Uncle Connor won’t be at the Christmas party next year?
11. It was neat to walk around Ladd-Peebles Stadium this week and remember getting my first good look at Carson Wentz in 2016. When the Eagles were at the Senior Bowl last year, they still had the 13th pick and hadn’t yet signed Sam Bradford to a two-year deal. Before that week, it seemed possible the Eagles could stay at 13 and get a quarterback, but during that week, it started to seem like Wentz would be gone. And the Senior Bowl started their quest to find a way to get him on their team (see story).
The one thing that really stood out to me about Wentz last year was how well he handled all the attention. He was so poised on the field and talking to reporters. It was all so impressive. Last year he was just a prospect and this year I spotted his photo on a banner advertising the game.
12. And it wasn’t just Wentz at last year’s Senior Bowl. The quarterback play in general was much, much better last year than this year. In 2016: Wentz, Dak Prescott, Jacoby Brissett, Kevin Hogan.
This year, the quarterback play … the best of the bunch was Pittsburgh’s Nate Peterman. But there was a clear drop-off.
13. Shoutout to the American Airlines gate agent at Terminal 3 in the Mobile airport for boarding our late-arriving plane in like 3½ minutes. This guy threw away all the boarding group and elite member crap, bypassed the muffled intercom system and yelled to us all to get on the damn plane. Not all heroes wear capes. It helped me and a few other Philly-bound reporters make our connection in Charlotte. It was still a little tight, though, as we had to sprint — with bags in hand — to the other side of the Charlotte airport to board. The Inquirer's Zach Berman said he clocked me at a 4.6, but I think he was being a little generous.
14. One of the most interesting things Roseman said during his meeting with reporters was about positions of strength in a given draft class. The common thought process is that when there are a lot of good players at a position, teams can wait until later to get one. Roseman dispelled that.
“It’s interesting, because last year we sat there and said defensive tackles in this draft are unreal,” he said. “You’re going to get an opportunity to be there in the fourth or fifth round and there’s going to be a second- or- third-round guy. And what happened was they all went. And we had looked at it before and in years where there’s positions of strength, when you think you can get guys later, what typically happens is there’s a run on those guys and [teams] want to get their own guys. So you just have to be careful that you’re not sitting there going, ‘This is a great draft at position X and we’ll be sitting there in the sixth round and we’ll get a great guy.’ That’s why just sticking to your board and not getting cute and just making sure you just get the best player for the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Keep that in mind this year. To me, the position with the highest number of first-round caliber guys is cornerback. I think the case could be made that around eight guys could be first-round talents. But maybe that won’t prevent the Eagles from taking a corner in the first round if the right one is available.
15. Let’s swing back to receiver, because that’s the position it seems like everyone wants to talk about. On Wednesday, Roseman talked about how the 2014 crop of receivers in the draft — Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., Kelvin Benjamin and others — has expectations out of whack. Before then, receivers have always taken a while to acclimate in the league. “It hasn’t been a plug-and-play position,” Roseman said.
It’s easy to hear those remarks and be convinced the Eagles will try to solve their receiver problems solely through free agency, but it isn’t that simple and nothing Roseman said completely rules out the Eagles picking a receiver at 14 or 15 in April. Because here’s the thing: it isn’t about next year and although the Eagles have missed on first-round receivers before, the best chance to get a really good one is still picking one early … obviously. This is about building long term around Wentz, so if they get a guy in the middle of the first round and they’re convinced he’ll be special, it won’t matter if they already signed a receiver in free agency.
16. Alabama tight end O.J. Howard would be my pick for star of the week. He was a first-round pick before the week began and he’s absolutely a first-round pick after it. A lot of people were surprised when he opted to compete in the Senior Bowl, but I’m glad he did. Howard was really fun to watch down there. I have no doubt that he’ll be a star at the next level.
17. The following players from the North team impressed me (looking down numerical roster): WR Zay Jones, WR Cooper Kupp, S Obi Melifonwu, CB Jourdan Lewis, RB Kareem Hunt, DE Chris Wormley, RB De'Veon Smith, ILB Haason Reddick, OT Julie'n Davenport.
18. The following players from the South team impressed me (looking down numerical roster): ILB Ben Boulware, WR Ryan Switzer, CB Tre'Davious White, RB Jamaal Williams, CB Domontae Kazee, CB Corn Elder, CB Cam Sutton, OT Antonio Garcia, WR Josh Reynolds, WR Taywan Taylor, TE O.J. Howard, DE Tanoh Kpassagnon.
19. Remember Mike Kafka? The Eagles used a fourth-round pick on the quarterback in the 2010 draft. Kafka spent two seasons with the Eagles before Nick Foles beat him out for the third-string job in 2012. After that, he bounced around the league, trying to land somewhere, for a few more years.
Well, I ran into Kafka down in Mobile and he’s now coaching at his alma mater, Northwestern. He was a graduate assistant in 2016, with a focus on wide receivers, according to his bio on its website.
Back in 2011, when the lockout forced a bunch of Eagles to meet at a field in Marlton, New Jersey, I was out there to watch them. So for weeks, I watched Kafka throw pass after pass to Jason Avant. And no matter where Kafka put the ball Avant would catch it. Good times … sort of.
20. A friendly reminder that the actual Senior Bowl game doesn’t matter nearly as much as what coaches got to see during the week of practice. The schemes are pretty vanilla, so the players can learn them quickly. The week, though, is really valuable. The Eagles really value it.