Eagles' Chip Kelly says Nelson Agholor 'did a good job'

NELSON AGHOLOR'S NFL debut probably was not everything he'd always dreamed of, or everything that NFL observers might have expected from the Eagles' first-round rookie.

Agholor played 59 snaps, second among Eagles receivers only to Jordan Matthews, who was on the field for 63 of a possible 74. But Matthews caught 10 passes for 102 yards, on 13 targets. Agholor was targeted twice, caught one pass, for 5 yards.

Fans saw in the preseason, when Agholor put on the jets and took his first catch to the house, 34 yards against the Ravens, that the rookie has the potential to make game-breaking plays. But he got no chance to break Monday night's game, with the Eagles dinking and dunking down the field once they finally got their attack moving at all.

"Nelson did a good job," Eagles coach Chip Kelly said yesterday. "A lot of times with a receiver, it's when you're called on, do you respond? You can't control how many balls are thrown your way or not thrown your way at times . . . I thought for his first game, he really blocked really well."

"That's how the game of football works sometimes, you know?" Agholor said. "All you can control is your effort and your focus."

Blocking, Agholor said, is "an effort thing," and he has been an effort guy, ever since he reported in the spring.

What were his expectations?

"Honestly, all I wanted was an opportunity to put some stuff on film and just learn from it," Agholor said. "I had no expectations."

Matthews said Agholor played well.

"He looked like he'd been playing a long time. When he had to make a block, he made his block. When he had to run off defenders, he ran off defenders. He was always in the right spot.

"The [Atlanta] linebackers, they get out to the flats quickly, they play deep, so it's hard to get balls to the outside, so of course we want to work the inside a little bit more. As the season goes on, we're going to play teams where there will be more work outside, and I know Nelson's going to do his job. But I don't think you can really go off stats to understand how well he did in his first game. Our receivers coach [Bob Bicknell] loved how Nelson played, and I loved how he played, too."

Wide receiver Miles Austin played in 106 Dallas Cowboys games from 2006-2013. Even though he spent 2014 in Cleveland, Austin still ranks eighth in yardage among Dallas receivers, all-time, with 4,481, on 301 catches, 34 of them for touchdowns.

Sunday will be Austin's first game against the Cowboys, but he said he doesn't find it strange, hasn't been in touch with any former teammates this week.

"Your next game is your biggest game. That's the focus. Have a better start than last week," Austin said. He repeated this to a couple of variations of "how does it feel to play the Cowboys?" type questions. Clearly, how he felt was that he didn't want to talk about it.

The Eagles started DeMeco Ryans against Atlanta, an expected honor for the defensive leader, the man Chip Kelly called "Mufasa" when he went down with a torn Achilles' last November.

But Ryans ended up playing only 26 snaps. He seemed slow to react, missed a few tackles. Despite that reworked contract, it isn't clear Ryans is going to be as big a part of the defense this season as fellow inside linebackers Mychal Kendricks, who played all 77 snaps, or Kiko Alonso (51 snaps and a huge interception).

"We'll see how it goes," Ryans said yesterday. "We'll see how the rotation goes. I expect it to pick up a little bit more."

Did he feel he was moving well?

"I felt good," he said.

Is being a part-timer, at least for now, a tough transition?

"It's different. A change. I have to get used to something I haven't done before."

Still no Seyi Ajirotutu (concussion) at practice. It'll be interesting to see who picks up his gunner role on special teams . . . Chip Kelly said Vinny Curry "was a little up-and-down" Monday in his first, sparing, outside linebacker action. Kelly said given Curry's lack of experience there, "he did a good job," but "we have got to get dialed in a little bit on some responsibilities," as in a naked boot on which Curry lost containment against quarterback Matt Ryan . . . Asked to compare his backward-diving, one-handed interception in Atlanta to Odell Beckham Jr.'s famous catch last season, Kiko Alonso said: "His might have been a little better, because he was fully extended. That was a deep ball [making the onehanded grab trickier]." But the quarterback was actually throwing to Beckham. Alonso said he has no plans to help out at tight end.

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian