Eagles new receivers coach Aaron Moorehead obviously watched film of Jalen Reagor during the pre-draft process, but he already knew the Eagles’ first-round pick better than most.
Moorehead has known Reagor since Reagor was a little kid.
“I mean, that wasn’t anything that needed to be brought up,” Moorehead said in a 1-on-1 interview on the Eagles’ website. “That was something we all knew and excited that the possibility might be there. And I was excited when Howie made the pick.”
Moorehead played with Reagor’s father, Montae, for five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts in the early 2000s, so Moorehead knew Jalen Reagor as a youngster. The two teammates kept in touch over the years, Moorehead watched Reagor grow and, eventually, when he coached at Texas A&M, recruited Jalen out of high school.
Eventually, Reagor went to TCU and played three seasons for the Horned Frogs before the Eagles took him with the 21st overall pick last month. During his introductory video conference call, Reagor said the Eagles showed a lot of interest in him and communicated with him often; that included Moorehead, whom Reagor called “Coach A-Mo.”
Moorehead, the Eagles’ fifth receivers coach under Doug Pederson, is the guy the Eagles hope will get the most out of Reagor.
I think the first thing you see is he’s an explosive guy,” Moorehead said. “He’s got those physical freaky traits and you see that with him. But you definitely saw the explosion and speed. That was evident with some of the early clips I saw and as we got digging we saw some of the other things that make him special.
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Some other positive traits Moorehead sees in Reagor:
• Reagor “does a good job of separating in and out of his breaks,” which is something young players sometimes struggle with.
• Moorehead is impressed with Reagor’s run after catch ability.
• And he thinks Reagor is built well and strong enough to power through contact.
There are, of course, plenty of things for Reagor to work on. One of them, according to Moorehead, is his ability to use his hands better against press coverage and to create separation with his routes. As far as the separation with routes goes, Moorehead thinks the presence of DeSean Jackson will help immensely.
And Moorehead also mentioned Reagor’s transition from TCU’s spread offense to Doug Pederson’s offense in Philadelphia, especially when it comes to route concepts. But he’s ready to help Reagor learn the new offense virtually until they’re allowed to be together at the NovaCare Complex.
“It’s a pretty cool transition that we’ve had and kind of something that when we look back at this, we’ll be able to appreciate the beginning, the middle and the end of this thing,” Moorehead said, “that we’ve been able to be in each other’s lives. I always told him when he went to TCU, he had to do what he had to do, but at the end of the day, treat people right because you never know how this thing’s gonna come back. And funny enough, this thing came full circle.”
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