You can consider this Year 3 of Chip Kelly’s tenure as Eagles head coach, but it’s really his first season.
After he managed to yank total personnel say away from Howie Roseman, Kelly undertook a major roster overhaul that rid the Eagles of several of their best players and replaced them with those who more fit the coach’s unique criteria.
The result this spring is a 90-man roster rife with new faces at almost every position and several projected starters about to start Camp Kelly for the first time. The first round of Organized Team Activities (OTAs) begin on Tuesday and carry until Thursday.
Here are some of the biggest storylines entering OTAs:
The new QB
Nope, not Sam Bradford. Mark Sanchez will see the first-team quarterback reps until Bradford is cleared to start practicing, and it’s unclear when Bradford will receive that medical clearance. It could last well into the summer. For now, Sanchez is the leader of the offense, and he will look to improve on an interesting 2014 season in which he set an Eagles record for completion percentage (64.1) — up from around 55 percent for his career — but had a disappointing 3.6 percent interception rate (11 picks on 309 attempts) that reflected his career average.
It’s pretty hard to improve your completion percentage almost 10 percent and still throw the same number of interceptions. In his first season back from shoulder surgery, Sanchez’s arm strength wasn’t what it should have been for a quarterback once drafted fifth overall. He left too many plays on the field. Getting accustomed to his new receivers, getting the zip back on his fastball and keeping the ball way from the defense should be Sanchez's objectives throughout these camps.
Secondary holes
On paper, the Eagles should be much improved on defense this season and surrender far fewer big plays in the secondary. They paid a cash cow in free agency to upgrade the pass defense, starting with cornerback Byron Maxwell. But despite the additions of Maxwell, Walter Thurmond and three more DBs in the draft, the Eagles still have a major question mark at the safety spot opposite Malcolm Jenkins. They have plenty of candidates — Earl Wolff, Jaylen Watkins, Ed Reynolds, Jerome Couplin and Eric Rowe (to name just a few) — but no clear front-runner and nobody who’s proven they can play the position better than Nate Allen did.
NFL
O-line shuffle
Plenty of eyes this spring and summer will examine new starter Allen Barbre, who presumably succeeds Todd Herremans at right guard. The Eagles have long liked Barbre’s fit in their scheme, especially at guard. Barbre moved briefly to right tackle last year when Lane Johnson opened the season with a four-game PED suspension, but Barbre then tore ligaments in his ankle in the season opener and missed the rest of the year. He’s healthy, ready to go and primed for the starting job.
If Evan Mathis continues to stay away from voluntary team activities during his contract dispute, the Eagles will turn to Matt Tobin, Andrew Gardner or Dennis Kelly to fill the void. For the second straight year, the Eagles didn’t draft an offensive lineman, so there could be some opportunities for rookie free agents Mike Coccia, Malcolm Bunche, Brett Boyko and Cole Manhart to make the club.
Tebow time
Tim Tebow will be wearing an NFL uniform and competing for the first time since his 2013 stint with the Patriots in training camp. That’s almost two years. Tebow has worked to improve his passing, and the Eagles don’t really have a cemented No. 3 quarterback, so third-year pro Matt Barkley has someone pushing him for a roster spot for the first time. Tebow adds versatility but will first have to prove that he’s a better overall quarterback now than when he spent a few weeks with Bill Belichick two years ago. I’m sure every media outlet across the country, and in Rome, will be locked into every Tebow move.
Change is ... good?
Kelly, in his first season as the czar of all things Eagles, put together a roster with players who more fit his prototypes and criteria than his first two Eagles teams did. But he largely did so by adding through free agency, which isn’t a proven formula for success in the NFL. The risk isn’t just that players don’t fulfill their expectations, but it’s also that they don’t always acclimate to their new surroundings and teammates. Any time there are this many new faces in the locker room, there’s bound to be some growing pains and smoothing-out issues before the team can come together. Kelly had better hope that most of the free agents he signed will buy in to his program the way his Andy Reid holdovers did.