It was a quiet rookie training camp for Eagles\u2019 second-round tight end Eli Stowers, who finished up his summer on the shelf with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
But tight ends coach Ryan Mahaffey has seen growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited about Eli\u2019s development,\u201d Mahaffey said this week. \u201cFor him, we knew coming in, highly intelligent, has very good football character, good athlete, who had transitioned from another position and now is playing tight end. I\u2019m very pleased with the progression that he\u2019s made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, just because Stowers has been developing, it doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s ready to contribute. There even seems to be a decent chance that the rookie won\u2019t even be active when the Eagles kick off their season on Sept. 13 against the Commanders. And, even if he is active, he likely won\u2019t have a huge role.<\/p>\n
Mahaffey explained that there\u2019s a learning curve for any player as they adjust to life in the NFL. But that seems especially true for rookie tight ends.<\/p>\n
Over the previous five drafts, 11 tight ends were selected in the second round. Even with an outlier rookie season from Sam LaPorta in 2023, those 11 averaged 29 catches, 292.2 yards and 2.7 touchdowns in their rookie seasons. And Stowers, 23, is still a relative newcomer to the position.<\/p>\n
So patience is going to be key.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for every player coming into the NFL,\u201d Mahaffey said, \u201cI\u2019m always extremely mindful of a rookie that they have the proper mindset in terms of, \u2018What\u2019s our point of focus each and every single day?\u2019 And the most important thing is that you\u2019re remaining process-driven.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your process is sound, you\u2019re applying the coaching, you\u2019re giving great effort, you\u2019re being a good teammate, you\u2019re doing things with physicality, ventually, those types of things are going to come. I think it\u2019s always a matter of your standards vs. your circumstance. Obviously, your standards are always going to be extremely high, set by Coach (Nick) Sirianni and Howie (Roseman) and the rest of the coaching staff. And at the same time, there\u2019s a process to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually, growth is not going to be linear. You\u2019re going to have to, for any player, for the whole entire tight end unit, we\u2019re going to face some adversity at some point. But our process has to remain the same. And eventually, I think you just start to stack days, you get a little bit better, you get a little better and hopefully over the duration, you\u2019re stacking those type of days, you\u2019re building the proper habits that eventually you\u2019ll get to where you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stowers (6-3, 239) had a quiet training camp and didn\u2019t produce a ton in the first two preseason games either. He had 3 catches for 12 yards on 5 targets against the Ravens and Patriots. He had a couple nice plays over the course of training camp, but didn\u2019t flash the way some might have expected.<\/p>\n
After all, everyone knew it would take Stowers time to develop as a tight end. But he is an athletic pass catcher, who had 111 receptions for 1,407 yards and 9 touchdowns over his two seasons at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
With the Eagles in 2026, it\u2019s clear that Dallas Goedert is their top tight end and Johnny Mundt is going to fill a role as a blocker. In addition to those two and Stowers, the Eagles also kept E.J. Jenkins because they think he can be contribute on offense. They kept Jenkins over Cam Latu, who was more of a special teams threat.<\/p>\n
Maybe Stowers does eventually end up contributing in his rookie season. It might just take a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for any rookie as you\u2019re coming into the NFL, it\u2019s an adjustment, regardless of the position you play,\u201d Mahaffey said. \u201cFor him, I think he\u2019s been very diligent about his preparation each and every single day. He\u2019s growing each and every single rep that he has. I\u2019m excited about him and I\u2019m excited about the trajectory he\u2019s on. I think he\u2019s going to continue to get better as he gets more time on task.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a quiet rookie training camp for Eagles\u2019 second-round tight end Eli Stowers, who finished up his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6107,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-278146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-eagles-blog","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}