Good morning and welcome to another offseason week in the NFC East. We are exactly 13 weeks away from the date of the first "Monday Night Football" game of the season between the Eagles and the Redskins. Three of our teams have minicamps this week, and I will be traveling to Virginia tonight to take in the first couple of days of the Redskins' one. Lot going on, and it all starts with the links.
Dallas Cowboys
Calvin Watkins will of course be covering Cowboys minicamp this week, and he thinks it would be nice if Jason Garrett told him once and for all who's calling the offensive plays this year. I guess I agree, but only because I'm kind of tired of this being a thing. Does anyone really think that Garrett won't be able to overrule Bill Callahan if he wants to run something different than Callahan calls?
Bryan Broaddus thinks Callahan will bring added "toughness" to the playcalling that Garrett did not bring. And I think there's a point to be made there. When I looked at Garrett's playcalling issues, they more often seemed to be about decisiveness than about whether the correct or incorrect play was called.
New York Giants
Chad Jones, the former safety who was a third-round pick by the Giants in the 2010 draft but never made it to the NFL because of a car accident that nearly killed him that summer, was drafted last week by the Cincinnati Reds as a left-handed pitcher. Jones was picked in the ninth round of the baseball draft, which is a spot that definitely does not rule out a successful pro baseball career. Would be a neat story if he made it to the majors.
Ed Valentine recaps what so far has been an uncharacteristically eventful offseason for the Giants, and says the most significant concern that has arisen for him is the health of Jason Pierre-Paul.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles announced over the weekend that they're spending $125 million over the next two years to renovate Lincoln Financial Field. Read about the planned changes here.
Phil Sheridan says he doesn't think it's the existence of a quarterback competition that bothers Michael Vick as much as the existence of quarterback competition he's not winning. I guess. I still think what happened last week was that somebody asked Vick whether he liked sharing first-team reps and he answered honestly and it all blew up because it's June and that's what happens. I still don't understand why Vick would have been brought back if not to start or what in the world people are seeing from Nick Foles that's so impressive. I get that it's fun to watch organized team activities and minicamp practices and try to look for clues, but Vick's going to have to be a stone-cold disaster in the meaningful part of the offseason evaluation period (i.e., the part yet to come) in order to not be the Week 1 starter.
Washington Redskins
Brian Orakpo's goals for his recovery from the injury that ended his 2012 season in Week 2 are not modest. They include a 2013 Defensive Player of the Year award.
And yes, I know you're sick of hearing nothing but Orakpo recovery updates, but Orakpo's not the only injured Redskin working to come back from a major injury. Quarterback Robert Griffin III is wearing a different knee brace during his recovery than he was at the end of last season.