Eagles Receiver Hoping To Eat This Season: 'He's A Hungry Guy'

PHILADLEPHIA – Nick Sirianni was under the weather, but it was the weather itself that was sick. It was so unseasonably cool, so pleasingly refreshing on Friday compared to the sweat box of Thursday that, even though the Eagles coach didn’t feel well and had to cancel his scheduled pre-practice press conference, extended Day 7 of training camp by about 20 minutes past its scheduled end time of 11:41.

The players didn’t need to rush quickly for the air-conditioned comfort of the locker room after practice ended, in search of hydration, and that led to many of them hanging around the field to do some extra work. Players such as reigning Super Bowl XIL MVP Jalen Hurts, who was firing fastballs from about the 10-yard line into the end zone to Ainias Smith and Jahan Dotson.

Hurts had taken off his pads and was letting the ball fly to a pair of receivers who could be called upon during the marathon, 17-game season on the horizon.

Hurts and Dotson nearly connected during a practice red zone drill in the back of the end zone, but Jeremiah Trotter had great coverage, and the window was nonexistent. Still, Hurts gave Smith a chance by throwing it high. Smith made a one-handed stab at it while leaping high, but couldn’t quite come down with the ball.

Smith has looked like a different player throughout camp than he did last summer as a rookie. He’s much more confident, much more explosive, much sharper, and had some first-team reps on Friday.

“He’s a hungry guy, a great, hard worker, always wants to work on new things,” said cornerback Kelee Ringo. “I have a lot of respect for guys like that. With him being an offensive player, obviously our mindsets are a little different. But man, just the work ethic, you can only respect that.

“Being a rookie is tough for everybody, man. It’s the first time in the league, a whole different world. Everybody steps over adversity differently. I feel like he’s been doing a really good job at that.”

The thinking is that if Smith is going to make the team it will be as a punt returner first.

“I think Ainias has done a really good job of just improving his feet, his hands,” said special teams coordinator Michael Clay. “He's put in the work. You could definitely tell in the off-season, wherever he was training at and OTAs to now him just being more confident, kind of just calm, cool, collected back there, which has been great.

"We're excited to see maybe a little live action as we move forward with him catching and see what he can do. He was a pretty explosive return at Texas A&M.”