PHILADELPHIA — Coaches always tell us they love competition because, as the cliché goes, “it makes everyone better.”
Reporters and fans love them, too, because it gives them something to write and talk about that matters when the games don’t count.
The Eagles, for the second straight year, went into training camp with their fair share of angst and uncertainty at a number of positions.
Some things have been settled as the Eagles get set to play their second exhibition game Saturday against the Cleveland Browns. Many others have not.
At right guard, Tyler Steen went into training camp as the favorite to win the job for the second straight year. Last season he suffered an ankle injury on the third day of camp and it opened the door for Mekhi Becton to win the job.
Steen didn’t allow any doors to open this summer and, barring injury in the next 18 days, he will make his first opening-day start Sept. 4 against the Dallas Cowboys.
“That would obviously be pretty incredible,” Steen said. “That’s the goal. Everybody wants to be a starter, regardless of whether it’s opening day, the last day of the season or in the Super Bowl. It would be an honor to start on this team.”
The only other unsettled matter on the offensive side of the ball right now is at left guard. The Eagles are hoping that Landon Dickerson’s toughness wins out over the recent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee that is going to test his ability to be in the opening-day lineup.
Brett Toth, in his seventh season toiling in the NFL, has been given the first crack at replacing Dickerson if necessary. If he’s at left guard on opening night, it would be his third career start and first with the Eagles since 2020.
Wide receiver A.J. Brown has been sidelined for nearly two weeks with a hamstring injury but all indications are he’ll be ready to play on opening night.
It’s on the defensive side of the ball where things remain extremely unsettled.
There’s a three-way battle at cornerback among Adoree’ Jackson, Kelee Ringo and recent entry Jakorian Bennett. Jackson has by far the most experience, but that’s probably not worth much in the present evaluations defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is making on a daily basis.
Ringo, a fourth-round pick by general manager Howie Roseman in 2023, is still only 23 and probably the guy the Eagles wanted to win the job when camp opened. That hasn’t happened.
Bennett, selected one pick ahead of Ringo in the same draft by the Las Vegas Raiders, is the newcomer in the competition. He made 11 career starts with the Raiders, six more than Ringo has made with the Eagles, but he clearly hasn’t come in and claimed the job either.
Safety opposite Reed Blankenship was the other intriguing competition coming into camp. Third-year veteran Sydney Brown was in one corner and rookie second-round pick Drew Mukuba was in the other.
With a little bit of a twist, things appear to be settled here. Based on what we saw during the Eagles’ two joint practices this week with the Browns, it sure appears as if Cooper DeJean will play safety in the Eagles’ base defense and Brown will become the safety when DeJean moves to the slot cornerback role.
It’s the nickel configuration with DeJean in the slot that the Eagles will have on the field most often.
The one other unsettled thing on defense right now is the linebacker position. Jeremiah Trotter Jr., who has had a great camp, and rookie Jihaad Campbell have spent most of camp lining up with the first-team defense because first-team All Pro Zack Baun suffered a back bruise during the fourth practice and hasn’t run with the first-team defense since.
Baun will likely be back next week and it will be fascinating to see if Trotter or Campbell becomes the other starter. The guess here is that Trotter remains as a starter with Fangio finding creative ways to get Campbell on the field as a pass-rushing presence.
Here’s the most important thing to remember about all these competitions that we all obsess too much over in training camp.
The competition does not end when the season begins. Instead, it begins and continues until the season ends.
What’s true on Sept. 4 when the Eagles line up to play the Cowboys might not be true a month later when the Eagles play the Broncos at Lincoln Financial Field.
The 2024 season was the perfect example of that. DeJean, after missing most of training camp with a hamstring injury, played eight defensive snaps in the Eagles’ first four games, then was on the field for 52 in Week 5. Avonte Maddox never got his job back, but he did get a Super Bowl ring.
Defensive tackle Jordan Davis started every game last season, but his average number of snaps went from 32.5 through the first four weeks to 18.5 over the last 17 weeks with Milton Williams and Moro Ojomo becoming the primary beneficiaries.
“You gotta play your best ball at all times,” said a slimmed-down Davis, who is determined to remain on the field a lot more in his fourth NFL season. “They’re always going to put their best 11 on the field and even if you have that spot you have to keep working. That’s the mindset you have to have.”
The prime example of a starter who stopped starting last season was Bryce Huff. He got a three-year deal worth $51.1 million before the start of the season and that bought him a chance to be a main cog in the edge-rushing rotation for the first seven weeks.
Eventually, he was passed by Nolan Smith, Brandon Graham and Jalyx Hunt on the depth chart and didn’t even dress the night the Eagles won their second Super Bowl.
So you’ll read in the next few weeks that so-and-so has won this or that job. All they’ve really done, however, is earn a chance to be the starter at the start of the season. That’s when the competition for jobs really begins.
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Bob Brookover can be reached at rbrookover@njadvancemedia.com
