Eagles training camp preview: The five biggest questions going into the Birds’ first practice

The shortest possible offseason in the NFL has reached its final days.

Five months removed from a Super Bowl victory and a parade down Broad Street, the Eagles’ title defense will begin in earnest on Wednesday with the first practice of training camp.

As has become an annual tradition, here are the five biggest questions going into a summer full of practice sessions:

We’ve seen about as wide a range of outcomes from the Eagles’ offensive-coordinator carousel as possible the last two seasons. Whether Kevin Patullo falls closer to Kellen Moore or Brian Johnson as the Eagles primary play-caller won’t become clear until the regular season, but training camp will offer the first extended glimpse at how things may or may not change with him as the driving force behind the offense.

There’s a compelling argument — one that centers around the preferences of Jalen Hurts and the domineering nature of the Eagles’ historic run game with Saquon Barkley — that they shouldn’t change much from last season.

The group proved most of last season just how difficult it is for opposing defenses to scheme their way around a multiple rushing attack, an elite offensive line, and a running back who can create for himself in the rare instances that elite line cannot. Still, Hurts’ excellence in Super Bowl LIX against a defense determined to slow Barkley down showed that the ceiling for this offense is even higher than what it showed for most of last regular season.

For that reason, all eyes will be on Patullo and his vision for a talented group that will return all but one starter from last year (more on that later). There’s some merit to the notion that most of Hurts’ preferred concepts should carry over from previous schemes, but seeing how the former pass-game coordinator plans to stay ahead of opposing defenses fresh off an offseason of studying Barkley’s big year will be key.

With Milton Williams, Darius Slay, and Isaiah Rodgers among the several key contributors from last year’s dominant defense lost to trade or free agency, the Eagles are going to need to rely on a few young players to fill the voids they enter camp with.

Enter Moro Ojomo and Kelee Ringo.

Ojomo, 23, certainly looked ready for a bigger role at the end of last season. The 2023 seventh-round pick out of Texas had 25 pressures in the team’s final 10 games, according to Pro Football Focus, including three in the Super Bowl and four against the Washington Commanders in the NFC championship game two weeks earlier. That efficiency led to him playing about as many snaps as Williams by the end of the postseason, and maintaining that efficiency in an expanded role would be a major development for the Eagles’ defensive-tackle rotation.

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Ringo doesn’t have the same upward momentum as his draft classmate, but there’s still plenty of reason to believe he could step into a bigger role based on his limited playing time last year. Still, he’ll have to beat veteran free-agent signing Adoree’ Jackson for the outside cornerback spot opposite Quinyon Mitchell in the team’s secondary. Even then, the 2023 fourth-round pick may be behind Cooper DeJean in the limited snaps the Eagles line up without a nickel cornerback.

Neither are sure things, but both Ringo and Ojomo are the types of mid-to-late-round draft picks that the Eagles need to rely on to help balance out the top-heavy roster general manager Howie Roseman has put together.

The handful of starting spots up for grabs on the Eagles defense should not completely overshadow one simple truth: This year’s group will often go as its best players do.

Both Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith have the chance to serve as driving forces. Carter’s second season was as attention grabbing from an outsider’s view as it was for opposing offensive coaches eager to deploy two or three blockers in his direction, and his 75 total pressures were second among all defensive tackles last year, according to PFF. In each of Carter’s two training camps to date, he’s wrecked a practice or two to reaffirm his ability to take over a game for long stretches. I’d expect that to be the case this year, as well.

Smith is less of a sure thing, but the 24-year-old’s 19 postseason pressures finished second only behind Carter and suggested he’d taken the necessary leap to feature heavily in the Eagles’ edge-rusher rotation going into this season. Whether he and second-year edge Jalyx Hunt can stay at the level they ended last year at could make the difference for the group as a whole, considering Brandon Graham’s retirement and Josh Sweat’s departure in free agency.

For a fourth year running, the Eagles enter training camp with a competition brewing for the spot next to Lane Johnson.

Tyler Steen has been a constant in each of the last two position battles, but lost out to Cam Jurgens in 2023 and Mekhi Becton last summer. He spent the last two years as a backup as a result and played 399 offensive snaps last season without many notable hiccups.

Looking at the competition he faces, this should be Steen’s best chance to earn the job. The Eagles received former first-round pick Kenyon Green as part of the trade that sent C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans, but Green is more of a reclamation project than a projected starter. And, for what it’s worth, he played mostly at left guard during organized team activities.

The weighty collection of talent atop the Eagles roster the last several years has often determined the ceiling of those groups, but the floor has usually had much more to do with the role players on prove-it deals and rookie contracts.

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The likes of Zack Baun, Mekhi Becton, Quinyon Mitchell, and Cooper DeJean helped vault the Eagles to a championship, so it’s hardly surprising the Eagles have tried finding value around the fringes in a similar way this offseason.

Players like Azeez Ojulari, Josh Uche, Adoree’ Jackson, Jihaad Campbell, and Andrew Mukuba will all be important to monitor in their first summers with the team. Roseman has clearly targeted a collection of upside plays in free agency and the draft, now we will find out if he’s made the right bets.