Your yearly reminder that Eagles practice stats mean nothing

Eagles minicamp wrapped up today, which means we were bombarded with practice stats over the past week. The only stats you can actually track at practice as an observer are passing stats, really. So naturally, we’ve been force-fed Jalen Hurts practice stats.

I don’t know what the stats look like because I refuse to look at them, but I’ve seen people freaking out because they’re not perfect. And that’s the whole point. It’s fucking practice.

Imagine if some dork came to your work while you’re learning a new software and tracked every mistake you made, then tweeted them out with a shitty graphic attached. Mind you, this guy tracking your mistakes has never been in your position before. He’s just some guy who happens to get a lot of engagement off of it. I’m of course talking about Eliot Shorr-Parks here.

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He’s the main culprit of this whole craze around Eagles practice stats. I don’t know if he actually thinks they matter, and I don’t really care. The point is, they don’t, and no one should engage with it. I also don’t think ESP would like it very much if, say, someone like me started tracking every mistake he makes and tweeting it out.

For starters, I’d remind him every day about the DeSean Jackson gang ties story. You know, the one he made up. He still never apologized for that, by the way. It’s a shame. You’d think someone with such a shoddy track record would have the self-awareness to not make a spectacle out of someone else’s perceived mistakes.

Eagles practice stats mean nothing

ESP aside, none of us should put any stock into how many interceptions Jalen Hurts threw during practice. There’s a myriad of reasons why, but for starters, he’s learning a completely new offense. An offense being built from the ground up by Sean Mannion that probably won’t share much of anything with the Sirianni scheme.

On top of that, he’s facing a top-three defense in practice every single day — a defense that’s been playing under Vic Fangio for two years now. And the strength of that defense? The secondary. Add it all up, and it’s pretty easy to see why the Eagles defense has outplayed the offense throughout minicamp.

Jalen Hurts could throw a million interceptions during minicamp and I still wouldn’t care.

Practice is for ironing out the kinks. If you’re being conservative in practice, not trying new things, not taking risks, you’re not doing it right.

So no, I won’t be checking the completion percentage from a padless practice in June. Hurts is learning a new offense against one of the best defenses in football, and some guy in a polo is keeping score like it’s the NFC Championship.

The stats will matter in September.