As Eagles training camp arrives, no more parking-lot scenes; we’ll catch up Thursday | Early Birds

The Eagles report for training camp Wednesday, but reporters won’t be covering that. We aren’t allowed on the NovaCare grounds until Thursday, when the team takes the field at noon for its first practice. Doug Pederson and Carson Wentz are scheduled to speak afterward.

This is just fine with most of us. Who wants to stand around outside the building and try to get a few words out of guys as they arrive, when they won’t know anything they didn’t know when minicamp ended last month? But years ago, and especially before training camp moved from Lehigh to NovaCare in 2013, we actually would do this, a mass of cameras and recorders shuffling across a courtyard between a couple of dorms.

At least back then, guys were actually moving in, so you could ask why a player needed a dozen suitcases, or a 20-pound bag of beef jerky, or whatever. And Andy Reid would talk to us after his official inaugural evening “welcome to camp” speech, so we’d know right away if anyone had failed to show or had gotten lost on the Northeast Extension and ended up in Allentown.

But even then, most years it felt like a silly assignment. So even though overall access for reporters and fans has eroded significantly in the last decade, this one little odd bit of access is barely missed.

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— Les Bowen (earlybirds@inquirer.com)

Eagles president Don Smolenski went on 94WIP to defend the team’s decision to hold only one Lincoln Financial Field public practice this year, on Aug. 4, while charging $10 per person, with the proceeds going to the Eagles’ Autism Challenge.

Smolenski’s reasoning seemed to boil down to the idea that Linc practices aren’t great from a team perspective, which I think meant that trying to organize multiple drills on one field with 90 players isn’t a small task. It also meant that people were reserving the free tickets the past few years and then not showing up; charging and donating would allow the Eagles to plan better for the event. Oh, and that the field gets chewed up enough already, with concerts, etc.

I didn’t think any of those arguments was all that persuasive. But I will stand up for the Eagles in one very limited respect. A lot of the national coverage of this decision, which was announced last month, has been off-base, from people who don’t understand the team’s situation at NovaCare, where the Eagles are forbidden to hold large public events, and even if they weren’t forbidden, they don’t really have room to accommodate many thousands of people.

It’s silly to say, “Team so-and-so has 20 public practices and the Eagles have one. Team so-and-so CARES about its fans.” I don’t think there is another team in the league that isn’t able to hold public events in its training camp site and that has to schlep everything over to a stadium to hold an open practice.

That said, I have not seen a great reason to go from two Linc practices to one, and I don’t think the “planning” need is so great that you should charge for admission. Announce that you’ll be accepting donations at the door. That would generate plenty of money.

I really like Dallas Goedert (who doesn’t?) and his level of play his rookie season. I thought his run blocking was surprisingly good. How would you compare his blocking skills against the other Eagle tight ends? Will his ability as a blocker translate into more offensive snaps? Does the tight end coach handle blocking technique for his tight ends or does the O line coach handle tight end blocking assignments and techniques? Thanks. Really enjoy your Early Birds.

— Buzz Ritchie, Great Falls, Montana

Howdy, Buzz. I too thought Goedert did surprisingly well as a rookie blocker without a lot of background there. And yes, improvement will probably get him a few more snaps, but the fact is, we’re looking at the wrong end of the horse — or Eagle.

Tight end these days is about pass-catching. When I think of Goedert and Zach Ertz as a 12-formation nightmare for defenses, I’m not thinking about them bulldozing linebackers or safeties. In like fourth-and-1 or something, you might see Richard Rodgers in for either Goedert or Ertz. The Eagles’ tight end coach, Justin Peelle, was a fine blocking tight end when he played in the NFL, but yes, offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland does coordinate with Peelle on assignments and techniques.