Nick Sirianni didn’t hide his happiness with last summer’s joint practices with the Jets and Patriots, and the Eagles will be back at it again this summer.
The Eagles will be holding joint practices this summer at the Browns’ practice complex in Berea, a league source confirmed Tuesday. The news was first reported by Zach Berman and Zac Jackson of The Athletic.
Although the exact date isn’t known yet because the preseason schedule hasn’t been released yet, the Eagles and Browns would practice twice the week leading up to a preseason game, with a day off between the joint practices and the game.
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Browns training camp practices are held at the team’s year-round facility in Berea in Cleveland’s southwestern suburbs. This past summer, 12 of the Browns’ training camp practices were open to the public with a limit of 2,000 fans per practice.
The Browns have plenty of Philadelphia connections, starting with head coach Kevin Stefanski, who played football at St. Joe’s Prep and Penn. He was on Mike Zimmer’s Vikings coaching staff along with Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon from 2014 through 2017. Gannon is also a Cleveland native.
Browns general manager Andrew Berry spent 2019 as the Eagles’ vice president of football operations.
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Former Eagles Malik Jackson and Nick Mullens are currently on the Browns’ roster, and former Browns Genard Avery and Cameron Malveaux are currently with the Eagles. Also Browns offensive line coach Bill Callahan served in the same role under Ray Rhodes from 1995 through 1997, and his assistant, Scott Peters, was the Eagles’ 4th-round draft pick in 2002 but never played in the regular season for the Eagles.
The Eagles have held holding joint practices periodically going back to the 1986 Buddy Ryan Eagles’ fight-filled trip to Lions camp.
Last year was the first time the Eagles held two joint practice sessions – at the NovaCare Complex with the Patriots and in Florham Park with the Jets.
Because the joint practice sessions aren’t filmed, the Eagles were able to run stuff at those sessions that they wouldn’t run in preseason games. The Eagles wound up taking the joint practices more seriously than the three preseason games.
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“This is great,” Sirianni said after one of the Jets practices. “I love this work that we're getting. … It's game-like and the guys are juiced up to go and roll, so you're seeing what they would be like in a game.
“It’s another tool, and it's a good tool to have because of the intensity -- we think we practice pretty hard when we are out there. Regardless of the time we're out there, we're getting after it when we're out there. It's just another tool to have to evaluate guys.”
The Eagles held joint practices with the Bills in 1998, but Andy Reid wasn’t a fan, and the Eagles didn’t participate again until Chip Kelly was head coach and had practices with the Patriots in 2013 in Foxboro and 2014 at the NovaCare. Doug Pederson held practices with the Dolphins in 2017 and Ravens in 2019, both in Philadelphia.
Last year was the first time the Eagles held two sets of joint workouts.
It's unknown if the Eagles will add a second set this summer, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they trained again with the Jets. The Eagles and Jets have met in every preseason since 1985 other than 2000 (and twice in 1992), and both teams seemed to think last summer’s session in North Jersey was a success.