If you think these three preseason games were painful to watch, consider that in the 1950s, the Eagles used to play seven preseason games \u2013 and just 14 regular-season games.<\/p>\n
Imagine if we had to sit through four more of these?<\/p>\n
Fortunately, we don\u2019t. The preseason is mercifully over, opening day is two weeks away and we\u2019ll never have to watch Ambry Thomas again.<\/p>\n
The Eagles finished the preseason with a 30-13 loss to the Bengals. This was their third winless preseason since 1977 and all three have been under Nick Sirianni.<\/p>\n
This is what happens when you don\u2019t play the starters in the preseason. It can get ugly. But it doesn’t matter. At all.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s our 10 Instant Observations from the preseason finale at the Linc:<\/p>\n
1. The interception wasn\u2019t his fault and he was also victimized by two other drops, but it was a grim performance for Tanner McKee coming off an outstanding game last weekend against the Patriots. McKee was just off, missed too many guys and didn\u2019t put the ball where he needed to put it, notably on what should have been a touchdown pass to Britain Covey. Uncharacteristic scatter-shot performance. He finally hit a few underneath throws to Carson Steele and Cam Latu in the two-minute situation, but he still finished 12-for-22 for 55 yards with a 41.1 passer rating. He took a couple sacks, didn\u2019t complete a pass longer than five yards to a wide receiver and generated three points on five drives. This was ugly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2. Andy Dalton was better this time and this quarterback competition may never end. Dalton, who struggled so badly against both the Ravens and Patriots, finally got something going with a late 3rd-quarter scoring drive. He hit Danny Gray over the middle for 26 yards on a sharp play-action pass, then 11 yards to Britain Covey for a first down, then a five-yard TD pass to Steele, Dalton\u2019s first TD pass of the preseason capping an 11-play, 76-yard drive. Dalton cooled off after that and finished 12-for-19 for 104 yards with the TD and a 95.1 passer rating. Round 1 was a push, Round 2 went to McKee and Round 3 goes to Dalton. We thought maybe the competition was over when McKee outplayed Dalton so convincingly in Foxborough, but the tables were turned Friday night at the Linc, so who knows? Neither QB has consistently lit it up this summer either at practice or in the games. We might not know who\u2019s No. 2 until opening day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
3. Great that Makai Lemon got out there and played in a preseason game after missing most of training camp with that hamstring injury, but this was not an auspicious debut. Lemon was targeted five times by Tanner McKee and caught three passes for three total yards and had a bad drop that turned into an interception for Tacario Davis, the Bengals\u2019 rookie 3rd-round corner. He also misplayed a punt late in the third quarter for a one-yard loss. So he had four total touches for two yards. Pretty discouraging debut. He said when he returned to practice on Monday that he wasn\u2019t behind, but he sure looks behind. With two weeks to go before the opener, I don\u2019t see how he can possibly be WR2 to start the season.<\/p>\n
4. This was the first we\u2019ve seen from Dameon Pierce, who ran for nearly 1,000 yards as a rookie with the Texans back in 2022 but hasn\u2019t done much since and missed a good chunk of camp. But, man, he runs\u00a0hard.\u00a0Pierce got four carries for 44 yards and really moved the pile on a couple long runs. He also had a couple drops and doesn\u2019t seem like a natural pass catcher. There isn\u2019t a roster spot for him behind Saquon Barkley, Tank Bigsby and Will Shipley and possibly even Carson Steele, but if he doesn\u2019t sign elsewhere I\u2019d keep him around on the practice squad. He\u2019s a proven vet and he looked terrific in his brief cameo Friday night.<\/p>\n
5. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to win that safety battle between Marcus Epps, who hasn\u2019t played in the preseason, and Michael Carter, who\u2019s played in all three games. But I do know that Carter has made more plays this summer than Epps, who was solid in his five starts at the end of last season after Drew Mukuba\u2019s injury. The problem with starting Carter is that you lose your most versatile backup defensive back. Carter can play slot, safety and dime, and there\u2019s value in having him available to back up across the board as opposed to starting him and having to shuffle people around in the event of an injury. It was Carter Friday night who broke up Josh Johnson\u2019s pass to tight end Jack Endries the end zone in the first quarter, and that\u2019s just one example of his coverage ability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
6. Jake Elliott has been the worst kicker in the NFL over the last two years, so it was awfully encouraging to see him make a 56-yarder in the third quarter as well as a 45-yarder in the second quarter. Elliott has missed six of his last eight regular-season kicks from 56 yards and out after making seven of eight to begin his career. Over the last two years, he\u2019s an NFL-worst 6-for-17 from 50 yards and out. He\u2019s kicked well this summer, and nice to see him build on that in a game situation. Only preseason but a big kick. Leg strength hasn\u2019t been Elliott\u2019s issue. When he\u2019s missed, he\u2019s missed wide left and right, not short. Good to see him bang those two through, especially the 56-yarder.<\/p>\n
7. Awful to see safety Andre\u2019 Sam get carted off the field with an apparent leg injury late in the third quarter. Sam is a good little player. He\u2019s been hanging around for a couple years now, spending a lot of time on the practice squad and getting into four games on special teams. But he\u2019s been one of the Eagles\u2019 better backup safeties this summer, and he had a big game Friday night with two fumble recoveries, a forced fumble and some nice coverage reps. He\u2019s a smart, tough dude and sticky in coverage. Cole Wisniewski has been hurt most of the summer and Maximus Pulley has been OK, but I thought Sam had a chance to make the team as a backup safety. I like the way he plays. Hope he\u2019s OK, but it didn\u2019t look great.\u00a0<\/p>\n
8. I\u2019ll say it again. I like that Zion Wilson, the undrafted rookie defensive tackle out of East Carolina. He\u2019s one of the few guys on the third defense who looked good Friday night. Wilson is the kid who was turned down by the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility and signed with the Eagles a couple days after he lost his bid to spend the 2026 season at Virginia. Wilson showed up fairly consistently during training camp and he\u2019s made plays in each of the last two games. He had four tackles, a tackle for loss, a quarterback hit and a hurry Friday night, and he\u2019s another one who won\u2019t make the 53 but has shown enough to earn a practice squad spot. Wilson was still in school during spring workouts, and he didn\u2019t get to Philly until June, so he\u2019s been making up for lost time and I could see the 6-foot-3, 315-pound Wilson playing on Sundays at some point.<\/p>\n
9. Carson Steele may be pretty good. This is two very impressive games in a row for the former Ball State Cardinal and UCLA Bruin. He followed his 6-for-84-TD last week with 8-for-52-TD Friday night. This is a kid who only caught 58 passes in three years of college football, but he\u2019s got a nice flair in the receiving game, he\u2019s tough, he catches the ball well and he picks up yards after the catch. And he\u2019s got a nose for the end zone. I don\u2019t know what the heck you do with him, but Little Thor, as the other running backs call him, has something. We already talked about Pierce, who is a proven NFL veteran and looked good in his brief appearance Friday. I\u2019d keep both these guys around. Pierce is a vested veteran and not subject to the waiver claim process, but Steele is. Running back is another position where this team has terrific depth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
10. How about that Antwaun Powell-Ryland, the Bengals\u2019 2nd-year edge rusher? APR was the Eagles\u2019 6th-round pick last year but was released at the end of camp and spent the first couple months on the practice squad before the Eagles gave up on him for good, releasing him a second time. The Bengals snapped him up, and he spent the rest of the year on their practice squad. He had a nice game Friday with half a sack, a pass breakup and another pressure that could have been a forced fumble on McKee but was ruled an incomplete pass. Had to be a cool experience for him having a big game against the team that drafted him and released him twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you think these three preseason games were painful to watch, consider that in the 1950s, the Eagles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[169200,349,319775,99],"class_list":["post-829585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-eagles-blog","tag-nfl","tag-roobs-observations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}