Wednesday was the first time anyone’s gotten a glimpse of what the 2025 Philadelphia Eagles will look like. It was a wildly early glimpse, but it’s a glimpse nonetheless. With that, it also means that we got some OTA press conferences, news, and a few videos to come out of it. That means football is back (for the time being).
Eagles OTA Report
Quinyon Mitchell on the left side
The big question this offseason is about who is going to play cornerback opposite Quinyon Mitchell, not where Quinyon Mitchell is going to play. That being said, it’s relatively notable that Quinyon Mitchell lined up as the left corner on Wednesday.
When he was asked about it during the press conference, he said, “I’ve been working on both sides. Just getting my feet wet on both sides.”
We’re literally one practice into the 2025 season, so there’s a pretty solid chance that Mitchell playing on the other side of the field during an OTA means nothing… but May is the time for irresponsible speculation.
This is the first time in five years that we’re going to be seeing an Eagles defense without Darius Slay reliably and consistently locking down the left side of the field. When he played, the corners never shadowed wide receivers; they just stayed on their side of the field.
If Mitchell is saying that he’s getting work on both sides of the field, that could mean nothing — or it could mean he’s going to make a move to the left side of the field, or he’s going to shadow the best wide receivers.
Shadowing isn’t a huge thing in the Fangio scheme, but maybe he’ll put in a few wrinkles here and there. It probably also depends on who the other cornerback is and how comfortable they are on either side of the field. It’s not a great idea to compromise coverage just to force a WR1 into a cell in Quinyonamo Bay.
Regardless, this is just another thing to pay attention to throughout the summer.
Bryce Huff wasn’t there
Some notable guys weren’t at Wednesday’s OTA: A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Reed Blankenship, Landon Dickerson, and Bryce Huff. Our good friends at Sesame Street made a song specifically about this exact scenario.
A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith could miss every single OTA for the rest of their lives, and no one in their right mind would have anything bad to say about it. Reed Blankenship not being there is a little wonky, but he’s earned it. Landon Dickerson is coming off surgery.
Bryce Huff though? Buddy, he needs every bit of help, practice, and playing time that he can get. Maybe he had a really good excuse, but we’ll never know.
Every day that he’s not there makes it seem more and more like he’s not going to be part of the Eagles' defense in the 2025 season. Hopefully that comes in some sort of a trade, specifically one where he goes to Atlanta to be reunited with Jeff Ulbricht. If that's the case, then his not practicing (just to make sure he stays healthy) makes a little bit of sense.
Kevin Patullo’s intro
On Wednesday, we also heard from the Eagles' new offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, for the first time. The very first thing he was asked was, “How different will the offense be this year?”
Patullo answered, “...Really, when you say ‘different’ I think it’s going to be like what do our players do best, like it’s been, and then from there we just expand upon it… I think when you look at our staff as a whole, you know we’ve added some new coaches, so they bring some other layers to it too.... So I think as we go forward, as we build this thing together… You know, we’ll see some new wrinkles here and there, but more so it’s just kind of building on what our players do best.”
As far as planning an offense goes, that sounds really good. The Super Bowl-winning offense is returning 10 out of 11 starters, so there’s no reason to try to reinvent the wheel. The only issue here is that it can be a slippery slope.
From 2022 to 2023, the Eagles' offense didn’t change at all. In 2022, it was a powerhouse that looked like it ran on rocket fuel, cocaine, and Red Bull. In that offseason, it was pretty clear that the powers that be decided not to change anything, be better at what they already did, and let it rip again.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite how the NFL works. When an offense is that good, teams pay attention to that in the offseason and develop schemes to stop it. So when you just try to keep ideas the same, other people change and stop you. That’s exactly what ended up happening in 2023.
Luckily, Patullo was part of that team, and you have to imagine that he learned from that experience. That’s why it’s good to hear him say things like “new wrinkles,” and “expand upon,” and “build,” from what the offense was last season.
This all kind of falls into the current state of football, where the longest tenured offensive coordinators with their teams (Dolphins, Giants, Packers, and Vikings) are going into just their fourth seasons at the post, and those OCs don’t even call the plays.
When offensive brains are changing as often as they are, it’s great to know that there’s going to be a good bit of continuity. It’s going to be the Eagles' offense, just with new ideas. On the other side of that metaphorical coin, last year, Jalen Hurts said the offense was 95% new, and then he became the Super Bowl MVP.