Problems the Eagles are already dealing with in training camp

Much can change in a week. It felt like the Philadelphia Eagles would never return and begin training camp, but we finally made it. We have gone from pulling our hair out from boredom to being glued to our cell phones. We've gone from a news cycle that was seemingly on life support to seeing updates every few minutes.

No notification goes unchecked. No call goes unanswered. It doesn't matter if we are standing in the grocery line or standing under the water in the shower. Man, we love football. It's the greatest game in the world!

The Birds reported to work on Tuesday, July 23rd. The first practice session came a day later. They took Friday and Sunday off. The first padded practice comes on the final Tuesday in July.

There are a lot of positives to report. Lesser mentioned Birds have excelled and faltered. As you'd expect, guys are turning heads (for good and bad reasons), but as is the case in every NFL city. In wouldn't be camp, however, if there aren't areas for opportunity. Here are a handful of things that we chose to make note of.

Of course, we'll take some time to discuss a few injuries.

Though guys are mostly in shorts and there haven't been any violent collisions, injuries can't be escaped. The Eagles have been forced juggle bodies. Everyone from Oren Burks and Brett Toth to Lane Johnson and Landon Dickerson have been in and out of the lineup at practice.

Saquon Barkley missed the fourth session because of personal reasons. The offensive line, meanwhile, has been experiencing most of the setbacks. Tyler Steen was injured during the third practice on Saturday. Trevor Keegan left the field on Monday seemingly with an arm injury.

The goal of every training camp is to get your guys to the regular season with as few injuries as possible. The Birds will be playing musical chairs for a tad, but thankfully, we haven't seen anything that is of the season-ending variety.

Two young DBs aren't getting any on-field practice reps.

It's always wise to coach your young players up and get them as much on-field time as possible. Philly hasn't been able to follow that business model with second-year safety Sydney Brown and rookie DB Cooper DeJean.

Brown sits on the PUP (Physically Unable to Perform list). He's still working his way back from the ACL tear he suffered during the regular-season finale last season. DeJean was added to the Active/Non-Football Injury list along with wide receiver Shaquan Davis before the first practice. Neither have taken a single snap in any session, and they won't take one for quite some time.

Stay tuned.

The offense keeps winning... until Day 4.

Had we written this before Philly's fourth practice, we would have spent the entire time discussing how the offensive unit has dominated their buddies on defense. That changed on Monday as Vic Fangio's guys enjoyed a much better day.

We wouldn't necessarily label this as being concerning. It is, however, worth mentioning. Teams don't keep score in practice, but you can best believe that both sides have a keen sense of knowing who's 'winning' the day.

Some of the receivers are dropping the ball too often.

Drops are occurring more often than we'd like. We aren't going to label this as a tragedy. It isn't like the ball keeps hitting the ground. Still, bad practice habits can, at times, become bad game day routines.

We hate to single guys out, but Ainias Smith is beginning to give us Nelson Agholor vibes. He's had hands of stone, dropping both punts and passes from his quarterbacks.

Tight end depth may continue to be a concern.

Speaking of hands of stone, we're beginning to see why the Bengals and Jets gave up on CJ Uzomah. Upon his arrival, many of us assumed he'd be Philly's second tight end on the depth chart behind Dallas Goedert. We also thought Grant Calcaterra might be someone to challenge for the TE3 role (or get left off of the roster).

Well, we all reserve the right to change our minds, right?

This may be good news to some and bad news to others, but Grant appears to have his coaches' favor. He might be the second-best tight end on this team.

So far, Uzomah looks like someone who should be concerned about a roster spot, That speaks to another issue though.

We've been concerned about the depth of this position behind Goedert for a while. Someone has to step up or that will be the vibe again come the regular season.

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