Early Birds: DeMeco Ryans on defensive improvement; Chip Kelly on offensive line depth; What Cody Parkey is doing

1) This is DeMeco Ryans' fourth season in Philadelphia, and he's been a part of some bad defensive performances. When the team won, it was usually because of their offense. But the Eagles' 24-17 win last week was in large part because of the defense's effort, and it came one week after the Eagles allowed only offensive touchdown to Dallas. It's still early in the season, but Ryans sees a change in the Eagles' defense.

"It is starting to turn, where as defense we're starting to get more greedy," Ryans said. "We want to be known as an aggressive defense. We're kind of selfish that everyone talks about our offense and their tempo and how many plays they're going to run, are you guys on the field too much? For us, as a defense, we have to stand up and make a statement. Let's create more turnovers, cut down X plays, play the run well. We keep points off the board, and people start noticing our defense more."

The Eagles struggled against Falcons receiver Julio Jones in the opener – "He's been doing it to everybody, not just us," Ryans said – but they have otherwise been stout through most of the past three games. With improved depth and personnel, that could continue.

"From that game on, we've been holding our own," Ryans said.

2) The Eagles didn't add an offensive lineman in free agency until they signed John Moffitt after minicamp. That left the Eagles without much veteran depth, so all their reserve linemen are returning players from last year, when the line struggled while the starters were injured.

"Price tag of what was available in free agency was more than what we were willing to pay," Kelly said when asked why the Eagles sat out.

They also didn't add a lineman in the draft. Kelly liked the depth the Eagles returned, but he also didn't want to "just take players for the sake of taking players."

"We didn't have an offensive lineman with the third-round grade," Kelly said. "If we took them, we wouldn't have [LB] Jordan Hicks right now. There's always after the fact, you can say 'this', you can say 'that'.  But I mean we are not going to reach and take things just for the sake of taking things."

The Eagles would like to add another lineman, but they can't at this point because of injuries at other positions. They need to carry an extra inside linebacker with Kiko Alonso and Mychal Kendricks injured. At some point, the Eagles would like to have a ninth lineman.

"You have to figure out where do I get that extra spot right now? And for us, at this time, it was in the offensive line," Kelly said. "You get another injury somewhere, you may have to compensate somewhere else."

3) Chip Kelly said Parkey's groin injury is "in a different spot" from his preseason injury. It would have taken "at least weeks" before Parkey could do anything, so the Eagles could not put him on injured reserve with a designation to return. Kelly does not know if this injury is connection to the one Parkey had last season. Kelly expressed how bad he feels for Parkey.

"He's the most conscientious guy I've been around in terms of what he does from a kicking standpoint," Kelly said. "But, he had a great attitude when I talked to him the other day. He's going to be here every day. He's going to help Caleb [Sturgis] out. You know explain kind of where he's kicked before, kind of what the situations are. He's been down in Washington stadium; he's been in our stadium and just kind of help from that standpoint."