After injuries to Jordan Matthews and Zach Ertz on similar low hits by Eagles defensive backs Jalen Mills and Blake Countess on Friday, head coach Doug Pederson defended the plays when he met with the media.
"We’re in a live situation too, so I understand the competitiveness of the drill," Pederson said. "I’ve tried to get the message across, we’ll just protect each other. Try not to go low, it's reactionary stuff, you can’t fault the players for trying to make plays."
After the teams third consecutive "live" practice in full pads, Pederson reiterated the need to allow physicality and practice tackling during training camp again this morning.
"Football is a contact sport, this is gonna happen," Pederson said. "Whether it happens today or it’s gonna happen on Thursday night. It’s part of the game, I’m a big believer you never shy away from contact, you’ve gotta have contact. You just keep training the guys, you keep talking to them about protection."
Rookie quarterback Carson Wentz has been the most talked about player at Eagles training camp. This morning, Pederson updated the North Dakota native’s progression in regard to the challenging mental aspects of the quarterback position.
"He’s doing a nice job, he’s on track, he’s learning," Pederson said. "This is that time at camp that we’ve thrown so much at these young players that the volume of information usually catches up to players, quarterbacks in specific, but he’s done a nice job with it. He’s learned to kind of categorize everything and keep things relatively simple."
Pro football coaches have at times been critical of college coaches for making collegiate offenses too simplistic to maximize production in the short term instead of properly preparing them for the NFL. On Friday, Pederson spoke of Wentz’s understanding of football prior to arriving in Philadelphia.
"He came to us very knowledgeable in the game," Pederson said. "Knowing our system, the offseason was beneficial."
For the most part, Wentz has looked sharp during his second week of training camp. On Thursday, the rookie threw five touchdowns in six red zone plays.
You can see the full press conference from Doug Pederson below.
Patrick Del Gaone is a staff writer for Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter @Del_Gaone.
