Eagles making themselves at home in Orange County | Early Birds

This is not a normal week for the Eagles. They are staying in a hotel in Costa Mesa and will practice at the Los Angeles Angels' ballpark in Anaheim. All the classroom work will be at the hotel and the physical work will be at Angel Stadium. The team will need to shuttle to practices and follow an itinerary while here, but it will otherwise be structured as a regular practice week.  "We try to keep the week as normal as possible for the guys and for the coaches," coach Doug Pederson said. "We have a great set up here in the hotel. Coaches have offices and work space to get the work done. Players have got everything they need right here from treatment, rehab, doctors, medical facilities, all of that." When the Eagles were in Seattle, Pederson kept the players on East Coast time. Now that they're in California until Sunday, they're on local time. That means practices and news conferences are going to be later in the day, for those waiting for updates. But the reason they're here is that Pederson did not want his players to travel coast-to-coast in back-to-back weeks. The Eagles requested the chance to stay on the West Coast when they knew they had two games in Los Angeles and one in Seattle.

Pay attention to the status of tight end Zach Ertz this week. He suffered a concussion against the Seahawks. Ertz also had a concussion in 2015, missing a Thanksgiving game. He is with the team here in California. Like all concussions, it's out of the team's control because he must go through the league-mandated protocol and get cleared by an independent neurologist to return to action.

Two positions stood out from the playing-time distribution in the Eagles-Seahawks game:

• Jay Ajayi took the most snaps at running back, with 41 percent. Corey Clement was second with 37 percent. LeGarrette Blount took only 19 percent of the snaps.
• Najee Goode was the middle linebacker with Joe Walker out, playing 18 defensive snaps. Veteran Dannell Ellerbe took only one defensive snap in his first game active with the Eagles.

Doug Pederson defended his decision not to throw the challenge flag on Russell Wilson's lateral on Sunday. Tom Avril explains the science behind the supposed lateral and why it was really a forward pass. Lateral or not, Wilson gave the Eagles defense fits, as Paul Domowitch writes.

The Eagles need cleaner practices, Les Bowen writes, and they've come to a laid-back locale to do it.

Bob Ford says this Sunday's Eagles-Rams game is a must-win for the Birds.

Nelson Agholor thrived where he slumped one year ago.

What did Jeff McLane learn in the Eagles-Seahawks game?

Domo gives five reasons why the Eagles lost.

If you missed Monday's Early Birds, it tells you why it's not time to be alarmed.