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Rival teams coming up to Lincoln Financial Field from Florida this winter better watch out. The weather is bound to be frigid, bitter cold that could turn player’s hands into frozen popsicles, and the pass rushers for the Philadelphia Eagles will be warm.
DeVonta Smith experienced the perils of playing in cold weather last season as he kept asking for more towels. His hands were wet, and the football was hard. Eventually, the star receiver worked through it. Rookie Nolan Smith recently gave his thoughts on how he expects to handle his first game in extreme conditions.
His answer? Well, let’s just say that the Georgia native isn’t too worried about it. The guys on the opposing offensive line trying to block him might want to invest in hand-warmers, though.
“I don’t care, as long as I get to go out there and hit a mother f*****. I don’t really care about none of that s***,” Smith told Chris Long on the “Green Light” podcast. “And you get warmer the more you hit people. I tell people that.
“I tell people, when you take the elements of all that stuff, certain people, guys from Miami that come up here they be like, ‘Bro, I don’t even know what I got on this play but my hand’s cold as f***. Then you got a guy on the other side of me, I’m like, ‘I’m about to f*** you up.'”
Smith and Long talked shop for almost 20 minutes and covered a lot of ground. Like, Smith ordered his first and only cheesesteak from Ishkabibble’s on South Street. “I loved it. I thought it was amazing,” he said. Smith also detailed his early impressions on Eagles legend Brandon Graham who has been keeping a close eye on him this spring.
“Being around BG, that energy that he brings, he just always has a smile and stuff,” Smith said. “I would say me and BG have the same type of motor, like we run off the same type of happy juice, energy-type guys.”
Howie Roseman Sticking to Super Bowl Formula
General manager Howie Roseman joined the “Green Light” podcast to talk about the Super Bowl loss to Kansas City. The conversation took a lengthy detour when the subject turned to which team was better: the 2017 Eagles or the 2022 Eagles? Chris Long was adamant it was last year’s team, but Roseman wouldn’t take the bait. That squad raised the Lombardi Trophy; and the other one fell three points short of a championship.
“No, because we didn’t get the chip,” Roseman told Long. “And I think at the end of the day, man, it’s like fingers on your hands. Everyone says they don’t have a favorite kid. Everyone loves their kids the same, but everyone has kids they like better. It’s the same with teams.”
From there, Roseman peeled back the onion on the winning formula he’s found in Philadelphia. It starts in the trenches, offensively and defensively, and then the quarterback play has to be on point. Outside of that, you have to stay ahead of the curve. Identifying what the next trend is going to be before anybody else does.
“So, I think anytime you try to get away from what works, I think you’re trying to reinvent a formula,” Roseman told Long. “Sometimes you gotta get ahead of it a little bit, you gotta figure out the next trends, so you’re always trying to go, what’s next? It’s like this, and I don’t want to be insulting to anyone, but I think when you’re trying to copy the team that just won, you’re too late.”
Eagles Back on the Field for OTAs
Thursday (June 1) marked the first OTA practice open to the media. Players took the podium and ran through drills publicly for the first time, all together as reporters tried to guess early depth charts. A few notes (via The Inquirer’s Josh Tolentino): Nakobe Dean and Nicholas Morrow were the starting linebackers; Terrell Edmunds and Reed Blankenship were the first-team safeties; Darius Slay broke up a pass intended for Dallas Goedert; rookie Nolan Smith got some first-team reps; and rookie Sydney Brown was everywhere.
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