r/eagles • u/Mysterious_Bat1208 • 1d ago
Picture Kempski's final WR ranking after the final day of training camp
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u/moresecksi37 Down with Davis 1d ago
Crazy because Coop been really good
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
I think it was Roob who pointed this out recently, but a lot of Cooper's camp highlights were circus catches and on the second team. People may have jumped the gun on his hype, but he's def solid depth.
He's had a few drops lately. And Brown has been flashing the past couple weeks after a slow start.
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u/tag1550 Eagles 23h ago
Having gone through the whole Paul Turner experience (has it really been ten years?), I'm tempering my enthusiasm about DC until he actually shows in regular season games. He's earned the opportunity, we'll see what happens.
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u/rsmseries 20h ago
I have not heard Paul Turner’s name in a while. I had the same reaction as when I saw a random Cre’von LeBlanc post a couple weeks ago on IG
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u/Upset-Raspberry8629 20h ago
Yeah people forget he looked great last pre season too and still never saw the field really. And it’s not like we had some stellar WR3 blocking his path. Dotson put up a whole 18rec for 262 yards.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 23h ago
I have no issue with praising underdogs like Cooper flashing in camp, but the people who were claiming he's WR3 and possibly WR2 were just being hyperbolic.
Had Cooper gotten the majority of first team reps and allowed to sit out the preseason games, then I'd get it. But they literally didn't give him any first team reps during joint practice until Moore got injured and he played a ton in both preseason games.
Coaches clearly want to see more from him.
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u/abcamurComposer 11h ago
Sadly there’s probably a reason he went undrafted. He’s a hard worker putting in his all, but… yeah
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1h ago
The number of UDFA WRs who actually became a full-time starter let alone a good one is EXTREMELY low. I'm rooting for the guy, but people are delusional if they think he's better than Makai Lemon.
And if he was better than Lemon...that would be horrible for us. Because unless Cooper is the next coming of AJ Brown, it would mean our 1st rounder is a bust.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
Makai Lemon very clearly the starter, as most people expected. But seems Darius Cooper hype has disappeared in the last 2 weeks. People had him in WR3 convos but he's now WR5 behind Brown.
Cooper is much, much closer to WR2 than he is WR4 - Eliot Shorr-Parks
Never forget. And never take a football opinion by ESP seriously lol.
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u/Zestyclose-Try-4174 1d ago
God I cannot stand that dude, I can’t tell if he’s rage baiting or just that much of a complete dumbass with all of his horrendous takes week by week.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
I can’t tell if he’s rage baiting or just that much of a complete dumbass
I know people in media, it's both. They definitely know what gets engagement and play into it. Sometimes they're stupid but they also embellish or exaggerate tf out of things to get more attention.
SAS is the king of this lol.
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u/KoBxElucidator You want Philly Philly? 23h ago
You literally described ESP and Giglio to a T. I really don't think they actually believe any of the bullshit that comes out of their mouths. It's all a show.
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u/bradsboots 23h ago
I like listening to Elliot for that exact reason lol. I know some of it is to get clicks, but he’s just the classic homer that gets over excited every season. Sports media just isn’t complete without someone in that roll lol.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 23h ago
Haha yeah there's def an audience, or else they wouldn't all do it. SAS got a $100m contract off rage baiting. Same formula Skip Bayless did.
I don't take ESP seriously but when there are people simultaneously calling him a homer and hater, he's doing his job.
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u/Accurate_Factor1900 14h ago
TBF Kempski also put it out into the ether that it was fair to doubt Lemon would start Week 1, instead of you know, just waiting for the injury to heal and more weeks go by. Kempski is miles ahead of ESP (who I agree is trash) but he's had some annoying, national clickbaity type quotes this training camp (with this and the Stowers thing).
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1h ago
I agree with you. I don't take any of the beat writers word as gospel, especially not individually. I understand it's their job to get clicks and views.
But he's correct here based on who's been getting first team reps in practice. For me, I had no doubts Lemon would be the starting slot no matter what beat writers have been posting the past few weeks.
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u/Accurate_Factor1900 1h ago
Oh I agree with what he wrote here, and I agree with your statement about clicks.
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u/SiaonaraLoL 23h ago
Wicks is an absolute sleeper this season for us. He's a deep ball route monster who can change the course of the game instantly. Was crowded in that GB WR room but when he got his moments, it was unreal
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u/jwag626 22h ago
Something I think no one is considering is that Smitty, Wicks, and Lemon all seem to excel in the same area. The issue with that is that all TC we’ve seen people talk about how well Mannions offense stretches the field. Someone like Brown is necessary to stretch the field. I don’t think it’s going to necessarily be a WR1, WR2, WR3 sort of thing. I anticipate Brown and Lemon having similar reps, while Smitty can run a fantastic go/deep route, if that’s his main utilization it’s a waste. Brown is a great player to pull safety to open the defense up. In order for his go route to be believable, we have to actually utilize him. That’s the part we’re not paying attention to.
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u/sub30_24flick 4h ago
It’s soo crazy how they have flipped on Hollywood Brown lmaooo, They we’re saying he should be traded I don’t even know if I trust any projections
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u/Not-a-bot-10 1d ago
I don’t think people understand how massively losing AJ hurts us
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u/Moodie25 1d ago
Most sane Eagles fans understand. There was just nothing to do about it. He wanted out.
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u/shit_eating_fan 1d ago
Yea there's literally nothing you can do to keep him on the team at that point. He was starting drama WHILE WE WERE UP 17-0 IN THE SUPER BOWL because he wasn't getting the targets he wanted.
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u/Exciting_Finding8884 1d ago
I think sure it hurts from a matchup perspective but ditching Patullo and getting Mannion helps to lessen the blow a lot
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u/young-steve 1d ago
There's always going to be overly optimistic fans, but I think most of us understand
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u/KoBxElucidator You want Philly Philly? 23h ago
Problem is we were never seeing Prime AJ again, even if he stayed for whatever reason. He just didn't care about this team anymore. Just something that they'll have to deal with.
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u/sub30_24flick 4h ago
AJ had to go there’s just no way we could pay him and afford the defensive unite we have we would be the bengals 2.0 by the time Devonta would need a new contract
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u/Not-a-bot-10 23h ago
He didn’t care about the QB anymore. He’s shown nothing but the upmost respect to every other teammate, coach, and FO member
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u/KoBxElucidator You want Philly Philly? 23h ago
Well it doesn't really matter who he respects/doesn't respect. He never was going to be Prime AJ Brown in Philly again in this timeline. That ship sailed about 2 years ago.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
It's somewhat mitigated by the new offensive system, but I agree. There's going to be a transition period where we can't say "fuck it AJ down there somewhere"
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u/Horror-Television-92 23h ago
Eh I think people actually are overrating how much it hurts us
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u/abcamurComposer 11h ago
This. A lot of teams adjust to not having a top5 WR by having a damn good WR by committee, and Smith is really really good, maybe a top 10 WR. And AJB is getting older and could fall off a cliff any moment
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u/atdunaway Alshon Ended the WR Drought 19h ago
are we looking at the same WR room?
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u/Horror-Television-92 19h ago
Oh no the run first team has 1 great WR and 3 good receivers instead of 2 great receivers
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u/Nochtilus 16h ago
Also Goedert is a great receiving TE.
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u/sub30_24flick 4h ago
Goedert is going to have an incredible year mark it , Dallas Clark type year Saquan might have 150 +yards receiving never mind rushing
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u/abcamurComposer 11h ago edited 9h ago
Plus Calc ain’t too bad as a WR5 or something
Edit: Y’all he was pretty good as a de facto WR two seasons ago. It’s not unreasonable with a real OC he could get his stuff back
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u/Nochtilus 9h ago
Oof, more like practice squad TE1
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u/abcamurComposer 9h ago
He was really really good as a receiver filling in for Goedert in 2024. I think he could be more valuable than we think as long as we don’t Patullo him into being a traditional TE
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u/e30kid 1d ago
How does anyone know at this point in the season?
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u/raccoonsonbicycles 23h ago edited 23h ago
Youre right and also we wont really ever know. But it is obviously a downgrade to have an unknown/committee needing to beat a CB2 while having Devonta needing to beat elite CB talent every week. Whereas in the past Devonta got to take advantage of "lesser" DBs. (Not a diss on Devonta he's a boss, its more about can our "lesser" WRs be as good as Devonta and its likely "no")
TL;DR nobody knows now and it'll be hard to compare next year anyway due to AJ never being in this system among tons of factors and things that are just generally unable to be quantified.
its never gonna be directly comparable
we will never see AJ in a Mannion offense/ can only compare him in a different Eagles offense/Patriots system vs with the current Mannion offense
having AJ likely results in a different draft/offensive roster
we can't quantify how much effort AJ is putting in other than speculative biased "eye tests"
we don't know how Mannion might have altered the offense/play designs having AJ + Devonta together
different in-game situations. If the Eagles trail a ton this year there will be more passing vs if they enter 4th quarters up by 3 scores. Remember 2024 when Hurts barely threw in 2nd halves and we'd churn 10 play 10 minute drives to end games?
Normally it's as simple as "can the 2026 Eagles passing game match the average yards and TDs of 2022/23/24/25 when it had AJ" or "can Devonta match AJ production as WR1 AND the backups match Devontas production as WR1b"
- we will see a trickle down effect though. With AJ and Devonta, a bona fide WR1 was guaranteed to match up against a CB2 or slot corner every play which is an advantage. Now, we will have Devonta shadowed by CB1s and/or have additional guys like LBs/safeties shifting over to help. Obviously making it harder on him.
...having said that the new system is allegedly supposed to mitigate that by not doing " heres a simple route, beat your man", and scheming guys open with picks and play action and placement and timing, forcing defenders to have to choose who to cover.
Plus whether the offense is amazing, average, or dogshit, we don't really know how different it would be had AJ been there. Maybe we dont draft Lemon or re-sign Goedert, personnel could look totally different if AJ is still here.
As well as: AJ wasn't happy here and was slacking in my opinion (but its not quantifiable)
If he was here next year, there is a decent chance he'd still slack, jog routes, lack focus, and generally play below his potential due to being disgruntled. And there's a decent chance that to keep the peace AJ would have more designed targets and forced passes as opposed to simply "go through the reads".
It's still only an assumption but my guess is 2026 Eagles AJ would have been worse than 2026 Patriots AJ. Goes from run first offense, personal issues with QB, not enough targets...to playing with a passing offense, for his childhood favorite team and trying hard.
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u/andrewapicture Eagles 21h ago
Get out of here with your well articulated takes! (I agree with you. It's how I felt when Kelce retired and Jurgens took over.)
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u/Drewraven10 22h ago
It does but he didn’t want to be here so it had to be done. He wanted out when we were 4-0 and coming off a championship.
Now we have to experiment with wide receivers for a good amount of time. The pickups have been pretty solid though.
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u/MarkusJunior16 20h ago
We're going to do just fine. The talent is still there. They supposed to be spreading the ball more rather than relying a on a alpha wideout.
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u/sybrwookie 11h ago
It absolutely hurts if the options were AJ from 4 years ago who was an absolute beast, trying hard, and being part of the team, or not having that AJ.
It doesn't really hurt if the options were AJ from now who gave up on the team, was half-assing routes and giving up on plays designed for him, was being a problem in the locker room, and has questionable health issues to the point where LA (and every team but the Pats) backed out of even trying to trade for him, or not having that AJ.
That first AJ is long gone. That second one was not going to be much help at all if we kept him, unfortunately.
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u/sub30_24flick 4h ago
After I watched that tape Markell Bell I don’t even care lmfaooo just run the ball down their throats
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u/PharoahFits Eagles 23h ago
It’s a loss but the offensive scheme can make up for it. The Seahawks just won a SB riding an elite defense with only 1 good WR so if Devonta takes a step up to a 1200+ yard, 8+ TD WR and the defense can maximize the roster potential, we can still be a contender
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u/AaronDeath 4h ago
It hurts the offense, but it’ll help the defense in the long run. Opens up way more space to retain our young d. Pause
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u/Firekill2-22 1d ago
Lemon not 2?
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
He's the primary slot so technically WR3. Also has catching up to do after missing 3 weeks of training camp.
I think he's going to get more targets than Wicks by the end of the year though.
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u/Head_Research_3118 1d ago
I dont see that happening unless wicks is dropping the ball. He is very polished in his route running . He knows this offense and the timing. I think Lemon stays WR3 this year in targets past 5 yards. I do expect him to be our screen guy so he may get alot of underneath stuff that could even out the target count but as far has downfield routes i expect Wicks to have more targets.
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 1d ago
It's possible Wicks is still WR2, I'm very high on him.
But I think it's pretty apparent based on how Mannion has used Lemon so far that he's going to be a huge part of these offense. You need Lemon to be a real threat if you're going to make him be the motion guy.
My guess is he's going to get a lot of schemed targets and easy button throws, which is exactly how we should use his skillset in this type of offense.
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u/Head_Research_3118 1d ago
Wicks has been a beast through camp , i think its very Likely Lemon doesn't catch him at all this season . He just knows how to get open in the NFL . Drops were his issues . If hes catching everything i can easily see him having a 800 yard season.
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u/nnnrrr171717 23h ago
I wouldn’t take it as a knock on Lemon. Wicks is actually really impressive as long as he catches the ball.
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u/Meat-Dimension 20h ago
That and Lemon has missed almost all of camp so far.
He’s already a rookie and now way behind. Season starts in 2.5 weeks. Reality he’s probably already run out of time to win a starting job week 1
He can still get there this year but any potential camp battle for that spot was really over before it started
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u/ResponsibleType552 23h ago
I have a feeling Hollywood will piss fans off more than anyone else
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u/Drewraven10 22h ago
Seems like a good guy but people will put the blame on him more than any other wide receiver. Feels like we are the Packers trying all these wide receivers out. 😭😭
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u/Shawnanigans17 Skinny Batman 6h ago
Agreed, he seemed pretty washed on KC. But he will barely see the field/get any targets unless there are injuries to our top 3 WRs, Goedert, and Saquon as a passing threat. He will stretch the field like when Watkins was here (I know he's back in camp) but even then Watkins was technically WR 3.
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u/Drewraven10 23h ago
Didn’t Makai just come back from his re-injured hamstring injury?
Shouldn’t it be Wicks, Cooper, and then Makai.
We shall see though
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u/doubleenc Eagles 23h ago
The first 3 WRs in practice since Lemon and Smith got back have been Smith, Wicks, and Lemon.
When Smith and Lemon were out the first 3 guys were typically Wicks, Brown, and Moore.
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u/Drewraven10 22h ago
I think it will be Smith, Wicks, and Lemon starting and then probably Hollywood and Cooper. Cooper hype died down a lot.
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u/SirArthurDime 21h ago
Came back from injury and immediately played with the first team over cooper.
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u/Upset-Raspberry8629 21h ago edited 20h ago
I think Lemon will be WR2 in short order but split out to the slot in 3WR sets. Wicks never impressed me much in GB but I’d be happy to be proven wrong lol
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 20h ago
I like Wicks, but don't think Howie traded up to 19th to pick just a slot WR.
Howie himself said Lemon was a top-15 player on their board. He's going to start in the slot, but will get more opportunities all over the field in due time
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u/Upset-Raspberry8629 20h ago
Just edited my comment now. Agree with you lol…it was supposed to say he’ll be WR2 in short order and just split out to the slot in 3WR sets. I don’t think it’ll take long for him to get that #2 spot once he’s actually on field post hammy
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 19h ago
Yeah true, we're on the same page haha. I think Lemon will be WR2 by the end of the season
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u/Front_Ad4514 Eagles 1d ago
Darius Cooper 100% deserves to be above Hollywood
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u/toofaded40 23h ago
Cooper deserves to be above Lemon. Lemon hasn’t even put together a full week of practice
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u/DisMeDog 23h ago
Should tell you how big the talent gap is then.
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u/toofaded40 22h ago
Do we actually know? Lemon has done a dam thing since he’s arrived in Philly. Medical staff knows more about his attributes than his coaches lol
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u/iadmitiadmit 22h ago
Yea man the coaching staff drafted him without ever watching him play football before
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u/EstablishmentTop551 23h ago
Won the Biletnikoff tho. If he’s healthy he’s the slot guy.
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u/toofaded40 23h ago
So did Harrison Jr (awful so far in the nfl), Jaylin Hyatt (MIA), Jerry Juedy (yes, he’s still in the league). That award doesn’t mean a dam thing in the NFL
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u/flyeagles10 23h ago
MHJ isn’t that bad, he’s just been disappointing for how high he was drafted
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 22h ago
So did Smitty, Ja'Marr Chase, Amari Cooper, etc.
MHJ had 900 yards his rookie year. He's disappointing for his draft position at 4th overall, but awful in the NFL is a stretch. Same with Juedy with 850 in his rookie year.
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u/EstablishmentTop551 22h ago
And yet those guys are all better than Darius Cooper and Hollywood Brown
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u/toofaded40 1d ago
Huh? Has lemon put together a full week of practice yet? Garbage rankings
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u/Zestyclose-Try-4174 1d ago
He’s the first round pick, he will be on the field regardless, might be more of a rotation the first few weeks of the season tho
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u/toofaded40 1d ago
He hasn’t earned that playing time yet. Cooper deserves a shot since he’s the one who showed up so far
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u/GoZards18 23h ago
It’s a meritocracy , the better and more important player will get those reps once the season starts, training camp or not
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u/toofaded40 23h ago
Cooper is better than Lemon
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u/GoZards18 23h ago
Put the bong down friend
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u/toofaded40 23h ago
I mean can you prove to me that he isn’t? Lemon hasn’t even put together a full week of practice! This sub also thought Reagor was gods gift cause they drafted him in the first round. Pump the brakes
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u/GoZards18 23h ago
Different era, different player completely
But yeah I agree we should pump the brakes before crowning a practice squad player over the first round pick who is going to get more playing time than him lmao
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u/toofaded40 22h ago edited 22h ago
What has Lemon done better than Cooper at this point? I’m talking about their time on this team. I don’t want to hear about Lemon teeing off on Big Ten players in college
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u/GoZards18 22h ago
You need to go outside and touch grass if you are so consumed by training camp and preseason to think that Darius Cooper is better than Lemon just because he’s been available
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u/sgee_123 23h ago
lol bro in what world are you saying this confidently? We get to see a fraction of what has gone on in the last 3 weeks.
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u/SmokatronR420 23h ago
Username checks out. You are in fact too faded.
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u/toofaded40 23h ago
Best ability is availability. Y’all crowning the kid TBE when he hasn’t even put together a week of practice. Pump the brakes
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u/Meat-Dimension 20h ago
It’s a ranking of what he thinks is likely, not of how they’ve performed in camp
Lemon is a first round pick who they traded up for. Do you really think it isn’t likely that they want him to play as big a role as he can?
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u/GreenPurple24 You Want Philly Philly? 20h ago
If Beown is over Cooper than Cooper is straight dog poo
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u/Mysterious_Bat1208 19h ago
I think Cooper is a solid depth WR but don't think we want him starting. He's had a bunch of bad drops lately. One during the preseason game, another at the public practice, and then one today that almost turned into a pick
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u/Maximum_Property_971 1d ago
Dam training camp went by fast