OTAs are fun for a couple of reasons. It’s the first time we really get to see the new version of a team together, and everyone looks fantastic because it’s not a real football practice. We get to find out which guys aren’t happy with their teams, then we spend the summer talking about how they want to be traded. It’s perfect.
So let’s look at three of the big overreactions from the second week of OTAs. We’re looking at the Eagles, the Cardinals (or maybe not the Cardinals), and the Cowboys.
The Eagles’ offense is immediately going to be better.
Based on the small snippets that we’ve seen from practices, what the beats have reported, and what the players have straight-up said, it sounds like the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offense is going through a massive overhaul this offseason … which is amazing.
Jalen Hurts was talking about the differences between the offenses the last couple of years and the one Sean Mannion is running. He said, “… the base of the offense was running inside zone, and that’s not typical for this West Coast type of style. So I think that’s a natural difference. Then I think from a pass game standpoint, as things evolved, we were very one-on-one dependent. Trying to find a matchup instead of a full flow West Coast style offense.” (8:02 in the video below)
That’s huge because if you watched the Eagles’ passing game all over the past four years, you saw isolated routes and wildly simple and predictable route combinations. It was all about a pass catcher being a better athlete than the guy across from them … And the results from that vary.
They were dominant and explosive in 2022. They were stale in 2023. They were inconsistent but explosive in 2024. They were disgusting and brutal to watch in 2025.
So now, they’re going to the Shanahan-style scheme that deliberately tries to get pass catchers in space. As far as a passing game goes, it’s significantly more quarterback-friendly than their old, ‘Try to decipher the disguised coverage and find a guy who’s the least covered’ scheme.
We’ve seen a bunch of worse quarterbacks and worse athletes than Jalen Hurts do very well in that kind of offense, so this all seems good.
But … there’s going to be a learning phase.
This is an entirely new offense for the Eagles players. Jalen Hurts has never run anything like this in his career, and Saquon Barkley and the offensive line have never played in an outside zone-centric run scheme (and they have a new O-Line coach).
There are a lot of changes. Sure, the offense will run better than last year (which isn’t a high bar), but it might take a second for them to really start vibing.
Josh Sweat’s not getting traded?
OTAs are not mini-camps. Mini-camps are the mandatory workouts, and OTAs are optional. As a blanket rule, healthy players who are happy with their situations show up to OTAs … and Josh Sweat has not been at Arizona Cardinals OTAs.
He breaks that blanket rule; he’s one of those veterans who has earned the privilege and leeway from the team to go and do his own workouts in the offseason. But that’s not the part that gets reported. It turns out, you can just ask the guy about it.
On Sweat’s last Instagram post (from December 2025), someone named @CMFNY commented: “Man TF up and show up to OTA’s and put in that work to get better.” Sweat aptly replied, “tf are you talking about?” @CMFNY answered, “Passsionate fan who wants to see you succeed with the team amid buzz from insiders that you aren’t happy Gannon is gone and might want out after 1 year.” Sweat put it to bed, “I do my own training every offseason. This is nothing new…”
See? All you have to do is ask (and also be kind of a weirdo about it), and you’ll get a partial answer.
But the damage from the absence had already been done. Jordan Schultz reported that teams were calling the Cardinals about a potential trade for Sweat. That’s kind of a big deal because Josh Sweat is still very awesome and would be worth a lot to a team that needs pass-rush help.
Then, on June 2nd, Ian Rapaport, the NFL Network’s Insider and noted Jordan Schultz hater, tweeted, “This has gained some steam on social media, so just to provide some clarity: #AZCardinals edge rusher Josh Sweat is not being traded. Not to the #Packers or anywhere. Carry on…”
This whole thing is an amalgamation of weirdness. On one hand, @CMFNY was right, Sweat went to Arizona because he’s a Jonathon Gannon guy, but Nick Rallis is still their defensive coordinator, and all three of them were together in Philadelphia.
On the other hand, there were definitely teams calling about his availability because it’d be crazy not to. But it’s really easy to make a call like that. You could call the bank right now, ask for a million dollars, hang up, and then tell people you were talking to the bank about getting a million dollars … It doesn’t really mean much.
On a third hand, it’s still pretty early in the offseason, and it’d be stupid to get rid of any leverage you have in trade negotiations by saying that you’re going to trade the guy.
There’s a lot of time until the trade deadline, and I think the Josh Sweat trade rumors are only going to intensify with every loss they have going into the trade deadline.
George Pickens hasn’t been at OTAs
Well, well, well … If it isn’t the most predictable thing to ever happen ever … again … for like, the 100th-straight year.
George Pickens didn’t go to any of the Cowboys’ OTAs. He is expected to be at the mandatory mini-camp in a couple of weeks, but we’ll see about that.
The Cowboys slapped a franchise tag on Pickens at the end of February, which guaranteed him a cool $27.3 million, but Pickens rightfully didn’t like that and waited until the end of April to actually sign the thing.
A franchise tag means that 2026 is going to be a “prove it” year … One could argue that 2025 was a prove it year, and he definitely proved it by having the most productive year of his career. And now he has to do that again
That is, unless the Cowboys give him a contract extension, which they almost definitely will, because that’s what they (almost) always do.
There’s nothing more Cowboys than an incredibly high-profile player not getting the contract they want, holding out (or in), and then signing something massive the week the season starts. We saw it with Ezekiel Elliott, CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott (but no hold out), Terrence Steele, and Micah Parsons.
You would think that last year’s disaster with Parsons would make Jerry Jones a little gun-shy with doing his whole, ‘Wait until the last minute and overpay guys’ charade … But it won’t.
Parsons is a unique player for a lot of reasons, but off the field, the dude is really outspoken about a whole lot of things. When the contract negotiations went belly up last season, he made it public. Then he had to stand his ground, lie down on a table during a preseason game, and he was eventually traded.
That’s an outlier of a result for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. Jerry gets what he wants, and he purposefully pays a premium for it. This whole thing will get solved, and it’ll be about 10 minutes before the Seahawks and Patriots kick off on September 9th. Same old thing.
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