NFC Beast

The Philadelphia Eagles are getting an early look at their roster in the first week of the team’s limited OTA sessions.

On the latest episode of “Inside The Birds,” Geoff Mosher gave observations from attending the team’s first open OTAs practice and, along with Adam Caplan, drafted an offense out of the best players in the NFC East. 

Eagles 2023 first round pick Nolan Smith has been all over the field in OTA practices

Brian Johnson

Geoff Mosher: “Usually, the offensive coordinator stands behind the quarterback in the offense. Brian Johnson stood on the far sideline and watched it from behind the defense. The only thing I can think of is he is trying to get an All-22 view of what the defense is doing and how the offense is responding.”

Zech McPhearson

Mosher: “McPhearson was running slot [corner] because Avonte Maddox wasn’t there. That’s not really surprising. Greg Cosell thought he was a better slot corner at Texas Tech than outside corner. We know Maddox has battled a lot of injuries in the last two years and Josiah Scott did not ace his test trying to be the backup.”

Adam Caplan: “More or less, he was the top backup outside corner, but you wouldn’t know because he didn’t have to play. Now he has competition in the guy who should win it on the outside in Greedy Williams.”

Britain Covey

Mosher: “He caught a slant from (Marcus) Mariota over the middle. What I saw that I really liked was that he made one move to turn upfield and turned the jets on. He looked like a slot receiver.”

Caplan: “That surprised me last season. Him making [the roster] I understood was mostly because he was a punt returner, but the one takeaway we had in last year’s OTAs was that he was so quick in the short area and they wound up never doing anything with him in the slot. They were so married to Quez Watkins last year.”

Nolan Smith

Mosher: “I feel like he was on the first, second, and third teams. He was out there all of the time. He would be a stand-up edge rusher, but you can’t hit the quarterback. So on every play, he took three steps toward the QB, fires off the line of scrimmage, then stops and drops into coverage.”

NFC East Draft

Caplan:

QB Jalen Hurts

RB Saquon Barkley

WR Terry McLaurin

WR DeVonta Smith

WR Brandin Cooks

TE Dallas Goedert

LT Jordan Mailata

LG Tyler Smith

C Tyler Biadasz

RG Mark Glowinski

RT Lane Johnson

Mosher:

QB Dak Prescott

RB Tony Pollard

WR A.J. Brown

WR CeeDee Lamb

WR Jahan Dotson

TE Darren Waller

LT Andrew Thomas

LG Landon Dickerson

C Jason Kelce

RG Zack Martin

RT Terrence Steele

Vote for which team is the best by emailing insidethebirds@gmail.com or vote on Twitter @insidebirds. 

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.

Listen to the latest “Inside The Birds” podcast featuring Adam Caplan and Geoff Mosher:

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