Today, the Philadelphia Eagles practiced in preparation for their week 3 preseason match up against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night.
Prior to practice, Eagles defensive coordinator Bill Davis addressed the media.
In case you aren't already aware, the Eagles inked a four-year contract extension with inside linebacker Mychal Kendricks last night. The deal is approximately worth $30 million dollars, with $16 million guaranteed.
Davis believes that the deal is huge for Kendricks because he won't have to worry about the contract during this season. He can just focus on football now.
Davis described Kendricks as the type of player that is just about exactly what he is looking for out of a linebacker in today's NFL.
"In this day and age, the prototype, he's getting close to it," Davis said. "Because I don't think there's really a need with all of the spread-out offenses that are out there, you need more speed and athleticism out there (more than size)."
Kendricks is paired up with Kiko Alonso and DeMeco Ryans at the inside linbacker position.The Eagles are now very deep at that spot- something Davis believes will be beneficial to the team in various ways.
"We have three good inside 'backers that we have a lot of options with," he said. "They'll get a lot of reps. Hopefully I can put them in the right situations and let them do what they do best the most amount of times."
In related news, NFL vice president of officiating, Dean Blandino proclaimed yesterday that Terrell Suggs' hit on Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford in Saturday night's preseason victory over the Baltimore Ravens was legal.
Davis didn't seem to agree with Blandino's observation of the play. Also, he believes that the NFL will do the best they can to protect Bradford- who is on the cusp of stardom if he can stay healthy.
"When you hit a quarterback in the backfield, you have to stay above the waist, whether he has it or not " Davis said. "You can hit him if you think he has the ball. If he has the ball, you can hit him any way you want to hit him. But when it's in that gray area (where the quarterback has just handed the ball off), the NFL is going to protect the quarterback. Period. They always have and always will. That's what drives the NFL."
Lastly, Davis doesn't know if Ryans will be 100 percent for the regular season opener against Atlanta, but he would like to see him play to some extent this week against Green Bay.
"Hopefully we can get him out there this week for his sake and sake to see where he is at," he said. "But this week looks a lot better than last week, and last week looked a lot better than the week before."
As for today's practice, Ryans (rest) , Marcus Smith (hamstring), Zach Ertz (core muscle) and Josh Huff (personal reasons) didn't participate.
Michael Malia is a contributing intern for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Facebook (Michael Malia) or Twitter @Michael_Malia.
