The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Preseason
from the draft.
“It was a long couple of days,” Sudfeld said. “I knew who Carson was. I knew who Cody was. It’s kind of a little fraternity, the quarterbacks. We were all at the combine. And I was at the Manning Passing Academy with Cody. It’s been cool going through that process with a lot of guys and seeing where everybody is now.”
Wentz is the guy for the Eagles, providing he stays whole. Do we need to remind anyone if he can’t get through a third straight season without a significant injury and that Super Bowl LII MVP Nick Foles is in Jacksonville?
That alone has livened up training camp, particularly the youngsters who think it’s useful to keep passing stats in spite of all the personnel variables at practices.
Truth be told, none of the quarterbacks has consistently killed it performance-wise at camp. And there’s nothing wrong with that considering the offseason additions of DeSean Jackson, rookies Miles Sanders and JJ Arcega-Whiteside, and even running back Jordan Howard. The atmosphere already is stale, the result of competing against the same players daily.
But it’s going to change significantly for the quarterbacks in a handful of days when the preseason begins Thursday against the Tennessee Titans at Lincoln Financial Field.
There’s no better way to evaluate players than in the heat of action, particularly with respect to quarterbacks, even if chunks of the game are with blocks of players who never will play in a real NFL game.
Assuming that Wentz makes only token appearances, and rookie fifthround pick Clayton Thorson gets the bulk of the duty in the preseason finale, the competition between Sudfeld and Kessler could get really interesting.
Kessler, a third-round pick of the Cleveland Browns out of USC, was the club’s only quarterback with a positive TD to interception ratio in his two years with the team. It proved too much for him to overcome as he was dealt to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a conditional seventh round pick prior to the 2018 season.
Last year Kessler quarterbacked a Jaguars squad that crashed and burned with only half the season in the books to a 2-2 record with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He has a dozen starts in his career compared to three games played by Sudfeld, who has one TD pass.
What the Eagles need to find out is how the Chase Daniel-sized Kessler (6-1, 215) functions in their offense in live action. The first week of camp, Kessler struggled. This past week he’s performed well. He’s putting the ball where it needs to be instead of right on the receivers. He has an escape route mapped out. Even the arm looks stronger than it did the previous week. It’s like the light has gone on.
“It’s really been clicking, I’m hitting some deeper balls, making some plays,” Kessler said. “It’s something I want to keep building off of but obviously coming up on the first preseason game you’ve got to make sure you’ve got everything down.”
Sudfeld, like Wentz, has had good days and not so good days. The 6-6, 227-pound product of Indiana has a stronger arm than Kessler and a familiarity with the offense that’s tough to gauge because of the wholesale practice changes from snap to snap. Sudfeld was pretty good in the preseason games last year, and teammates like Pro Bowl tight end Zach Ertz think he’s ready to take
Contact Bob Grotz at bgrotz@21st-centurymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @BobGrotz.