The free agents they signed and the roster turnover they are experiencing is not that unusual for this team. The number of new starters this year will not be off the charts for the Eagles, not nearly, and most of them will be either draft choices or guys who have worn an Eagles uniform in a previous season. Many of the rest, like Smith, will be low-risk complementary pieces.
What is different is different throughout the league. What is different is the compression of time. And this is the question: Can Reid and his coaching staff make the franchise's normal aggressiveness work in an abnormally short period of teaching?
"The only big difference is that they just don't have the number of reps on any given play, like they would have it in a normal year," Reid said, when asked about the franchise's philosophy and how to make it work. "Other than that, it's very similar to other years."
He was done his news conference, heading for his car. Earlier, he had said that after you've been at training camp for 2 days, it feels like you've been there forever - but this has been so different. No padded practices in the afternoon have cut down on so much. Special teams have a chance to be a Grade-A disaster throughout the NFL because there just isn't the time to practice them at full speed anymore. But that really goes for all phases.
Reid has always believed in live hitting at training camp, even as the rest of the NFL has backed off over the years. But the Eagles this year have not tackled yet in an 11-on-11 drill. Reid said there were just so many kids, with so little experience in the Eagles' system, that he felt the need to teach first and worry about the hitting later.
Kids, free agents. It is all so new.
