Game Juan of Castillo defense on tap

BETHLEHEM - Maybe this preseason opener is going to look like a train wreck. Good luck getting Juan Castillo to acknowledge that.

The Eagles host the Baltimore Ravens tomorrow night at the Linc, 2 weeks and a day after players started checking into Lehigh, still scrambling from the abrupt end to the lockout, without the benefit of the usual spring work that sets up the offensive and defensive schemes. Free agents, usually signed in March, were gathered during the system-installation process and finally got to practice with their teammates last Friday.

The new training-camp rules under the collective bargaining agreement that ended the lockout have limited teams to one real, live practice a day. To be truly ready to play a game tomorrow, the Eagles could have used, oh, about five practices a day.

When Castillo was asked about all this recently, his answer was that he isn't so much trying to get anybody ready to play the Ravens, like he would be during the season. If you were to conclude that for the coaches, this is Flight Night, but with purple uniforms on the other sideline, you might not be too far wrong.

"I don't think anybody really game plans a [preseason] game," Castillo said. "It's more of, we'll go in and do the things that we've been practicing, and then try to match up their stuff. Really, they have not watched any tape, we really don't game plan. All we want to do, is really what it allows us to do is kind of refresh and go through all the coverages and blitzes we've been practicing. Kind of like a little review, really."

He did eventually admit that it won't be up to the standards of the usual preseason opener, rarely a thing of beauty anyway.

"You know, maybe [it will be tougher] assignmentwise for everybody, because . . . all the minicamps and the passing camps, you go through all of the stuff over and over and over," said Castillo, who moved over from coaching the offensive line to running the defense the week before the Super Bowl. "So really you'd be going through it for about the third time by now, but we've only been through it once."

Castillo won't be allowed to run around on the field correcting stances and head-butting players, the way he did with linebacker Keenan Clayton last week. Castillo said Eagles coach Andy Reid has helped him feel comfortable with the transition to standing on a sideline talking through a headset to personnel in the press box, which will include corners coach Johnny Lynn.

"Well, you know what, coach Reid put us through that, through the headsets. We've done that about three different times . . . You can look at tape and all that, but I think the best thing that's helped me is on the field all the special [categories], seven-on-seven and you're running around, and then all of a sudden they say, 'OK, it's this personnel,' And I don't have much time to think, and boom, I give the front, and I give the coverage," Castillo said. "I think that's the best thing that's helped me, especially running around, because your head hurts, you're tired. So it's really like 'Bam, bam,' you have to call the front and the coverage."

Memo to Juan: Head hurts less when you don't slam it into helmeted players.

How will the defense look different tomorrow night, from what fans saw under deposed coordinator Sean McDermott last season? Castillo's brief has been to simplify. You've heard about new defensive-line coach Jim Washburn letting the defensive ends line up wider, worry less about run stopping and pass coverage. Some people wonder if this is really Washburn's defense, but Castillo talks about concepts Reid passed along, that have given Reid's offense trouble over the years; maybe it's as much a Reid defense as anything else.

On Castillo's depth chart, Kurt Coleman is the free safety and Nate Allen the strong safety, the opposite of what you'd expect; Castillo seems to truly want them to be interchangeable.

"He just has us kind of going back and forth, playing both sides," Coleman said. "He's allowing us to play, be aggressive on runs, be aggressive on passes . . . he's letting us fly around, and I think we're having a lot of fun . . . It is different [from last season], it really is."

But Coleman seems more like the stubby little hitter (SS), Allen the long-legged cover guy (FS).

"I got range," Coleman said. "But we both can kind of do both, just depending on the kind of [offensive] formation that's presented. I guess, if you had to say [one or the other], I am the free safety, I get to go back and play a little more deep coverage."

Castillo made a similar point.

"It really depends on the coverage," he said. "Which safety are you going to bring down in the box? You can do either/or, depending on the team and the formation. If you're going to play a two-shell, it doesn't really matter which one lines up where. Sometimes through injury I think they all have to be interchangeable and play both positions, and I think we have guys that can do that."

The Eagles are going to be very young at safety tomorrow night, just as they are at linebacker. A journeyman veteran, 26-year-old Jarrad Page, joined the team last week. Marlin Jackson, the injury-plagued former Colts standout, left Lehigh this week to consult with doctors about his groin injury; he seems unlikely to play a big role in the early going. The third safety right now would seem to be second-round rookie Jaiquawn Jarrett, from Temple.

"He's doing a great job, he really is," Coleman said. "He's picking up the system; I know how tough it is for a rookie coming in, especially with no previous experience with the coaches or the playbook . . . He's making plays, and that's the most important thing."

Castillo said tomorrow night is for Jarrett, as much as anybody.

"I think we have to tackle for us to see Jaiquawn," Castillo said. "I think you see that in the [practice] tackle circuit, he's one of the best form tacklers. He's got very good form, he's explosive, you see his strength in his hips. So I think we're going to have a nice look at him on Thursday."