Inside The Birds: “Did Nothing To Distinguish Himself”

With Eagles OTAs in the rear-view mirror, there were some surprising moves made this week, which included the release of some young players.

On the latest Inside The Birds podcast, Geoff Mosher and Adam Caplan break down the latest roster moves and discuss the assistant coaches’ press conferences that took place this week.

Jamie Newman’s release leaves the Eagles in need of a third QB.

Jamie Newman

Adam Caplan: “Jamie Newman, my understanding is he’s not expected to be back. This is not one of those ‘wink-wink, nod-nod’, we need a roster spot, just stay in the area, we’re gonna bring you back in July.’ It sounds like from what I understand is it just didn’t work out. The thing with Jamie Newman, I could just tell you this from talking to a lot of teams about him, I understand he didn’t play last year, he opted out, and then he transferred also which was very weird. I know teams were not comfortable with the situation. But the reason why he wasn’t drafted had very little to do with it; it’s his accuracy. The tape showed it. I’m not talking about his percentages and stats, A lot of coaches I spoke with had real issues with his accuracy.”

Geoff Mosher: “Is that related to mechanics, I would imagine?”

Caplan: “Yes, he’s got talent. He’s got good size and he’s got strength in his arm […] but it doesn’t matter how good of an arm you have, if you can’t throw with accuracy you have no chance. Newman did nothing to distinguish himself and I’ll leave it at that.”

No. 3 QB Options

Caplan: “They’re gonna add one guy. My understanding is it’s gonna be sort of a West Coast offensive guy. The names that I’m hearing – Nick Mullens, formerly of the 49ers, who definitely played in a West Coast Offense. Could be a guy like Sean Mannion, who played for Rams head coach Sean McVay, ran the West Coast offense. Look for one of those guys to sign here as a third quarterback.”

Kahlil Tate

Caplan: “He got cut in July of last year then he got signed to a reserve future contract this past January. He was a former college quarterback, who was never gonna make it anyway. Not a surprise they did this now.”

Trevon Grimes

Caplan: “Trevon Grimes was waived injured, so let me explain what happens here. One of two things will happen. When he clears waivers later today, which is Thursday, he will go to injured reserve. The Eagles have two choices. Either he stays on reserve the entire season, or they work out an injury settlement where he gets waved off of IR and then he can come back later in the season. The chances of him playing for the Eagles this season are slim to none. It was a long shot anyway but he’s a guy that they had hoped for, for the practice squad. Then the other part is if he didn’t get hurt and had a great camp, because we’ve talked many times how they have no experience, they just don’t have any real proven depth. If he would have blown up preseason in training camp he could have made the team, but now that’s the past. So they’re down to eight receivers that are on the roster technically right now.”

Brian Johnson

Mosher: “I had the sense that he tried to downplay [his relationship with Jalen Hurts], meaning I don’t think he wants people to think that just because he’s known him that he’s going to be laid back on him and he’s not going to coach him hard. Maybe Brian came in here and understands the dynamic that was here before him, which was you have a coaching staff that did not coach its star quarterback very hard.”

Caplan: “There’s no way to know but I kind of got that same impression because the other interesting thing about this is they kind of denied this was the case, of why he was hired. They said it had nothing to do with Hurts, I have a hard time believing that.”

Aaron Moorehead

Caplan: “[The receivers] are under the most scrutiny, they have the most questions. It’s not [Moorehead’s] fault they’re just very young, which is not a bad thing, and they have a lot of talent, but one of the negatives that I’ve heard is the Eagles were very disappointed with the lack of player development over the last couple of years. Now we could argue whether the talent is good enough or not. But a lot of the talent was not developed, particularly at the receiver position.”

“He was asked about the [Travis] Fulgham four-game stretch, which was incredible, he led the NFL receiving yardage over that four-game period. He was asked about the [Alshon] Jeffrey thing when Jeffrey came back whenever he’s ready to play. Fulgham should have obviously been the starter and he more or less lost his role. He talked about the best guys should always play well. Fulgham should have played. This is another one where you and I didn’t get a straight answer because you and I checked in to see why Fulgham was losing his job. We heard about maturity and handling his job the right way, that’s definitely part of it. This happened to him in Detroit and the coaches in Detroit did not want him on the roster, period, end of story. That’s exactly what happened from our sources.”

LT Battle

Mosher: “Jeff Stoutland was very animated. He talked a lot about Dillard and Mailata. Here’s the thing, he said it, it’s a battle. It’s a competition, and anyone who thought that Andre Dillard is just going to walk back into the job because he’s a first round pick is mistaken because this is truly going to be a competition. I don’t even think he’s the lead horse but he has a chance to win it but it’s a competition.”

Caplan: If Mailaita wins it I just don’t see them trading Dillard. They don’t know about Le’Raven Clark and even if Clark can come back in like late August, I don’t know if he can hold up physically coming off this injury. They’d be smart to keep Dillard, I’m not saying they’re shopping him, but you can’t depend on Brett Toth, come on.”

Avonte Maddox

Mosher: “Look, I’m not saying [Maddox] is going to practice at safety or that they have that in mind but it does sound like that they view him as someone who can move around and they are looking to figure out where the best place for him is going to be. I think we know where it’s not going to be but we don’t know where it is going to be.”

Caplan: “Yeah if he starts on the outside I’d be shocked. It means they didn’t sign Steven Nelson or a veteran off the street, it means they didn’t trade for veteran. I mean I know that they’re going to add a veteran, I just can’t tell you when it is going to be because they’re off on the money with Nelson and teams typically don’t make starting corners available.”

– Justin Morganstein (@jmotweets_) is a staff contributor to InsideTheBirds.com

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