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McLane: Are Eagles being too easy on Agholor?

Doug Pederson can publicly overlook Nelson's Agholor's mistakes and illogically praise his ability to do everything but catch the ball consistently, but if the Eagles coach and his assistants are neglecting to criticize the receiver behind closed doors, they are doing him a disservice.

Doug Pederson can publicly overlook Nelson's Agholor's mistakes and illogically praise his ability to do everything but catch the ball consistently, but if the Eagles coach and his assistants are neglecting to criticize the receiver behind closed doors, they are doing him a disservice.

Agholor played 69 snaps in the first three preseason games - about the same as in a full regular-season game. He made two receptions. He was targeted only five times and should have caught three more passes. While the sample is small, the catch rate is dreadful, especially considering Agholor's dubious history with drops.

And yet, Pederson said Monday that Agholor won't likely play in the preseason finale Thursday because he didn't want to "risk an injury" and because the second-year receiver is "right on track where he needs to be."

"I'm not concerned with Nelson," Pederson said.

Of course, he is. Otherwise Pederson's rhetoric when asked about Agholor's problems wouldn't have been the coachspeak equivalent of the receiver taking his eye off the ball.

"I've seen what he can do in practice," Pederson said. "Is there the occasional drop here and there? Yeah. But you know what? What he did after the drop - you probably didn't notice, the blocking he did down the field, the things he did away from the ball."

Other than that, how was the flight, Sully?

It should be noted that Agholor's practices - at least when they were open during the first three weeks of training camp - were inconsistent. His blocking, while improved, is still erratic. But even if he excelled in practicing and blocking, it wouldn't matter as long as he caught important passes and scored touchdowns.

Pederson can't come out and crush Agholor. If there was ever a time to pump up the 23-year-old receiver, it was immediately after he bungled a pass into the arms of an opposing defender and after the Eagles released Rueben Randle and Chris Givens on Sunday.

Agholor's spot on the roster was never in jeopardy - it hardly ever is for former first-round picks entering their second seasons - but the departure of Randle and Givens firmly establishes him as the Eagles' primary outside receiver.

Jordan Matthews will occasionally play on the outside, but most of his snaps will come from the slot. Josh Huff's role has morphed into more of a short-passing, scatback one. Dorial Green-Beckham will likely start opposite Agholor, but he is still far from having the full playbook. And Paul Turner could sneak in as the fifth receiver, or the Eagles could scan the waiver wire next week.

But the process of elimination leaves Agholor as the No. 1 outside target.

"This is a different type of pressure for me now," Agholor said Monday. "This is a pressure that I accept for my teammates. . . . This is an opportunity that I needed to take advantage of and something that I look forward to."

Maybe Agholor needed the type of pressure that suggested he could have lost his job. Maybe he needs to hear more than public platitudes from his coaches and teammates. Sam Bradford, Matthews, Pederson - they all had the same message focusing on Agholor's performance away from the ball.

There hasn't been this much praise about a receiver's blocking ability since Riley Cooper perfected the art of starting at receiver while not being a good, you know, receiver. Cooper was so good at blocking that he's no longer doing it in the NFL.

This isn't Agholor's first rodeo. He played at quasi-pro Southern Cal. He was the 20th overall pick in last year's draft. He has an NFL season under his belt. Pederson can channel the don't-kick-a-young-player-when-he's-down Andy Reid all he likes, but there has to be some kind of reckoning.

One Agholor moment from camp stood out: Bradford laid a deep pass in his hands during one-on-one drills, but an open Agholor bobbled the ball for two steps before he secured it and ran into the end zone. Fans in attendance applauded, but they shouldn't have. When Agholor jogged back to receivers coach Greg Lewis, he was greeted with a smile and a pat on the back.

Philadelphia is as hard a place to play as there is, but is Agholor's psyche so fragile that he has to be coddled? Maybe. He isn't especially big or fast, but he should have the physical skills to be more reliable. But his explanation for his latest drop suggests that the mental approach is still a struggle.

"To be honest with you, as a receiver, when you watch that, the end result of the drop isn't on my mind. It's what was my route to go to that," Agholor said. "Did I do too much to take my focus away from receiving that football?"

Agholor said that he ran a man-to-man route rather than one that should have been against a zone defense and that is why his eyes and hands weren't in the right place. He clearly works at the finer points, but does catching the ball need to be that complex?

Randle was the antithesis of Agholor. He caught everything in his direction, but he did or attempted to do little else. That's why he's gone. The same could be said of Givens, aside from the catching everything in his direction part.

"It can just come down to who is performing right now and . . . the guys that are playing at a high level," Pederson said when explaining the decision to cut the veterans. "You want guys that are all on board and doing things right."

Randle and Givens were one-year free-agent busts, but it's hard to fault the current front office after Chip Kelly decimated the receiver corps. It was the former Eagles coach, after all, who selected Agholor with his first pick in charge of personnel.

He would be happy to learn that Aghlolor has developed into a fine blocker.

jmclane@phillynews.com

@Jeff_McLane