Deep in the farthest corner of the Eagles’ locker room at the NovaCare Complex, things are still the way the team initially intended.
The last five locker stalls on the right were placed in order of the starting offensive line: Jason Peters, Allen Barbre, Jason Kelce, Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson.
A daily reminder that things don’t always go as planned.
Thanks to Johnson’s impending 10-game suspension, the starting offensive line in the locker room is much different than the one that has been lining up together for the past week.
So how difficult will it be to get this unit ready for the opener on Sept. 11?
“To answer the question, it can be a challenge with new bodies,” head coach Doug Pederson said.
Since the news of Johnson’s impending suspension broke, he’s been working with the second team. Meanwhile, the team has slid Barbre out to right tackle and replaced him at left guard with rookie Isaac Seumalo. That means every single player on the starting line is playing next to somebody new.
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There are challenges that go along with that, starting with the need to get on the same page as a unit. Barbre said the biggest thing about playing next to somebody new is the details about how they approach blocks. He said things are going well so far, in terms of communication, between him and Brooks on the right side.
“You’re trying to square out little things that end up making a difference in the bigger picture,” Kelce said.
“Everyone knows who they have, but how’s he going to surface a certain type of block we’ve been working on? How we want it to get done vs. the way their defense plays. There’s little things. Let’s say we’re sliding to the left, you’re going a little bit too deep or too far and it’s expanding the pocket a little too much. There’s things like that, that you’re constantly ironing out.”
Learning those minute details of how a teammate plays next to him isn’t new to Kelce. In fact, he’s played next to around a dozen different guards and thinks that past experience will help him as he gets accustomed to a rookie in Seumalo and Brooks, who was signed as a free agent this offseason.
After sliding Barbre to right tackle, Pederson elected to toss Seumalo into the starting left guard spot over veteran Stefen Wisniewski, who remains the backup right guard. The head coach said he isn’t ready to crown the rookie as the starter just yet, but said Seuamlo “hasn’t done anything to not be the starter.”
After a dreadful preseason opener, Seumalo looked much better on Thursday night against the Steelers. Sure, it wasn’t perfect and he was even called for a costly hold, but he showed improvement.
“There’s always little stuff you have to work on,” Seumalo said. “There’s never going to be a perfect game and I know it was better than last week. That’s the main thing, I guess, I was looking for. There’s still a lot of work to do. It was better than last week.”
It likely helps the third-round pick to be sandwiched between Kelce and Peters, who have a combined 17 seasons and nine Pro Bowl appearances.
Still, Kelce said he doesn’t want to overwhelm the rookie by giving him too much to think about. He worries that he could end up having too many voices in his head, which would cause him to play slower on the field. It’s something he saw when Danny Watkins was a rookie in 2011.
Kelce made sure to not compare Seumalo and Watkins. Watkins just started playing football a few years before getting to the NFL, while Seumalo has been playing all his life and his dad is a college coach.
“[Seumalo] was drafted in the third round for a reason,” Kelce said. “He’s a good player.”
This week in practice, things feel a little more like the regular season. Because starters play the most in the third preseason game, the team is actually game-planning for the Colts’ defense, which Kelce thinks will help the communication on the line.
When the line takes the field for the opener in less than three weeks, it likely won’t be in the same formation it takes in the corner of the locker room. Less than three weeks to go to figure it all out.
“Yeah, I think we’ll be fine,” Kelce said. “I’m not worried about that at all.”
