Philadelphia Eagles News

Eagles Flight Night! Practice Blog

Aug 02, 2009 at 03:13 PM

Here's a recap of what happened on the field during Sunday night's inaugural Eagles Flight Night! at Lincoln Financial Field. The updates are provided by Bob Kent (BK), Chris McPherson (CM) and Bo Wulf (BW)..

7:13 PM -It's much different being in the press box for a practice. We'll have a great overhead view of all the action. The team is about to be introduced to the crowd. The practice itself is expected to start around 7:30 PM. (CM)
7:17 PM - The defense is being introduced to the field first. They are wearing white jerseys and white pants. With the nice crowd, this has all the feel of a gameday except an opposing team. Quintin Mikell was the last player introduced for the defensive starters. The offensive players are wearing green jerseys and white pants. Jason Peters was introduced to the crowd and wore an entire practice outfit. Players who are not practicing are in jerseys and shorts. Brian Westbrook did not suit up, but he was introduced out of the tunnel. Donovan McNabb was the last player introduced. (CM)
7:24 PM - Public address announcer Dan Baker said some very nice words about our close friend and defensive coordinator Jim Johnson before everyone in the stadium observed a moment of silence. Following the moment of silence, a moving tribute to Johnson was played on the stadium videoboards. Timmy Kelly is about to sing the National Anthem. (CM)
7:28 PM - During the National Anthem, the entire team lined up on the home sideline with the offense on the North end and the defense on the South end. Now, the team is split up into their respective positions for individual drills. (CM)
7:31 PM- It's amazing to see how quickly DeSean Jackson has become one of the most popular players on the team. He received an exceptionally loud ovation when he was introduced to the crowd, which only continues a trend that's been apparent at Lehigh all week. (BW)
7:39 PM -David Akers is playing catch with fans in the crowd. He's tossing the ball deep into the lower level and the fans are throwing it back. I have to say I'm impressed with the arm strength of some of the Eagles fans, although one guy overthrew Akers and almost hit Macho Harris, who was standing on the sideline not looking, in the back. (BW)
7:42 PM - The offense and defense are now in the group install portion of practice. There was a big cheer from the crowd when DeSean Jackson lined up in the wildcat formation with LeSean McCoy in the backfield and Donovan McNabb split out wide. (BW)
7:55 PM - In 9-on-7 action, running back LeSean McCoy showed some nice cutback ability on one of his runs ... Later in the period, linebackers Tracy White and Moise Fokou read, reacted and made some nice plays at or behind the line of scrimmage. (BK)
8:03 PM - In the defensive backs vs. wide receivers one-on-one drills, there were several highlights: Hank Baskett beat Jack Ikegwuonu all the way down the left sideline for a 40-yard touchdown haul ... Danny Amendola beat Joselio Hanson down the sideline but was overthrown by A.J. Feeley ... Kevin Curtis beat Sheldon Brown on a 10-yard comeback route ... Joselio Hanson broke up a pass intended for Reggie Brown ... Brandon Gibson beat Trae Williams to bring in a McNabb pass ... Very tight coverage by Byron Parker on Marcus Thigpen. (BW)
8:08 PM- The first live hitting portion of practice was a special CAT drill, meaning that both sides were working on a third and short situation on each play. The first-team offense played against the second-team defense, the second-team offense played against the first-team offense, and the third teams played against each other. Jason Peters and Stacy Andrews did not participate in the drill, so the offensive line was, from left ro right, Herremans, Jean-Gilles, Jackson, Cole, Justic. On the first play, Darren Howard got past Herremans for a sack of Donovan McNabb ... LeSean McCoy showed a nice push to get some extra yardage on his only carry of the drill ... McCoy also caught a pass from McNabb that would have gained the first down, but middle linebacker Joe Mays then ripped McCoy's helmet off ... DeSean Jackson took a wildcat snap and showed some impressive shiftiness to break a couple tackles and gain about 10 yards ... the two cornerbacks lined up with the second team were Joselio Hanson and Dimitri Patterson. During the second-team offense's session , Lorenzo Booker put on a very impressive performance, especially considering he was working against the first-team defense. He busted one nice run off right tackle, took a screen pass, on a patient throw from Kevin Kolb, for about 20 yards, and did a nice job picking up a safety blitz ... Reggie Brown also made a nice catch on a throw towards the sideline ... Trae Williams made a beautiful breakup of a broken play after blanketing Marcus Thigpen for the entire play. Williams has looked very good the last two days of practice ... the second team offense line was Dunlap, McGlynn, Reynolds, Gibson, Patrick from left to right. (BW)
8:19 PM- More highlights from special CAT drill: Quarterback Kevin Kolb made the hot read as Akeem Jordan was coming up the middle on the blitz and fired a strike to wide receiver Reggie Brown ... On the first rep of 3rd-team offense vs. 3rd-team defense, quarterback A.J. Feeley delivered a nice pass over the middle to rookie Brandon Gibson for a gain of seven yards ... Later, Feeley was intercepted by cornerback Trae Williams as linebacker Tracy White was in position for a sack of the QB ... Running back Eldra Buckley showed good quickness in bouncing outside for a five-yard gain on a fourth-down play to close out the session. (BK)
8:21 PM- Attendance for Eagles Flight Night! is announced and ... 31,786 fans came out to watch the action. (BK)
9:27 PM -The fireworks are done and now I have a chance to get caught up on all of the notes that I took. Here's my recap of how the punters fared during the special teams drills. Sav Rocca went first with three punts of 45, 54 and 44 yards. Ken Parrish came out and knocked one 38 yards, then 45 yards before raising the stakes with a 59-yard blast. Rocca was not to be outdone. His next punt went 64 yards and was a perfect spiral down the field. His next punt was a 43-yarder. Parrish came on to boot a 49-yarder and a 43-yarder. Rocca's final one was a 45-yard blast. Ditto for Parrish. (CM)
9:44 PM - Here are my notes from the offensive line/defensive line one-on-one drills. Again, sorry for the delay ... Mike Patterson used a nice spin move to get past Stacy Andrews ... Jamaal Jackson did a good job of riding Dan Klecko high to negate his rush ... Brodrick Bunkley used his upper body strength to gain leverage on Nick Cole ... Trent Cole utilized a beautiful double spin move (one inside, one outside) to get past Todd Herremans ... Juqua Parker used a swim move to get past Winston Justice ... Patterson showed good leverage against Andrews ... Jackson was able to fight off Klecko's speed rush and got him to the ground ... Bunkley did a good job getting on the inside shoulder of Nick Cole ... Trent Cole bullrushed Herremans, but he was up to the task ... Chris Clemons used a sidestep to get past Chris Patrick ... Max Jean-Gilles had a good initial stop of Jervonte Jackson before getting pushed back ... Mike McGlynn and Willie Williams went to a respective draw ... Mike Gibson did a good job of neutralizing Klecko ... Darren Howard pulled out a bag of tricks against King Dunlap, but Dunlap held his own ... Patrick held Clemons ,,, Paul Fanaika negated a Jervonte Jackson rush ... Klecko used a swim move to get by Fanaika ... Josh Gaines was able to get past Mike McGlynn ... Williams looked good in getting by Fenuki Tupou. They re-did the rep and Tupou got the better of him ... Howard, again, went all out against Dunlap and once again Dunlap looked good ... Clemons jumped off-sides against Justice. In the re-do, Clemons simply bullrushed Justice back ... Gibson held his own against Parker ... Jervonte Jackson showed a strong hand punch against Dallas Reynolds. They had to re-do the rep and Reynolds negated Jackson. (CM)
10:04 PM - Here are some highlights from the 11-on-11 live drills. Again, sorry for the delay ... Akeem Jordan came on a blitz up the middle to flush out Kevin Kolb and negate a flea flicker attempt ... We got to see the 'Okie' package with Trent Cole and Chris Clemons standing up over the middle of the offensive line. Kevin Kolb threw a slant to Brandon Gibson on the play, who reached up high to make the grab. However, it was a third-and-20 situation and the offense came up well short ... Brent Celek was wide open over the middle on a 26-yard reception from Donovan McNabb ... McNabb hit DeSean Jackson in the open field after Celek went in motion to clear out the right side of the field. Jackson used a spin move on Dimitri Patterson to gain a few extra yards ... LeSean McCoy made a nice blitz pick up, it was Dimitri Patterson who came in on the corner blitz ... Josh Gaines batted down an A.J. Feeley pass at the line of scrimmage ... Charleston Hughes did a great job standing up and taking down the hard-running Eldra Buckley ... The final play of practice was Gaines intercepting a Feeley pass and returning it for a touchdown. (CM)

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