The Linc

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …

Report: Terry McLaurin has requested a trade from the Washington Commanders – Hogs Haven
The Washington Commanders and Terry McLaurin have not been able to resolve their contract dispute and now their #1 WR has requested a trade per multiple sources. The Commanders have reportedly been offering less than $30 million per year while McLaurin is seeking more than that. He is on the final year of his last contract extension, and he’s looking to secure his future.

Commanders’ situation with WR Terry McLaurin goes from bad to worse – PhillyVoice
Aside from any unknown unreasonable contract demands, there seems to only be one sticking point not to sign McLaurin to a contract extension — He turns 30 in September. Normally, age might be a logical concern for a front office when considering an extension. However, it doesn’t make much logical sense for a Commanders team that, by my count, signed, traded for, or re-signed 20 (!) players who are either already 30+ years of age or who will turn 30 by the time the Super Bowl is played in February of 2026. They also currently employ a staggering 31 players who are at least 29 years of age or older, by far the most in the NFL. (No other team has 20 players who are 29+ years old.)

Terry McLaurin requests trade: Six teams that could pursue two-time Pro Bowl WR – NFL.com
49ERS: After a 6-11 season caused — in part — by a number of devastating injuries, the 49ers are feeling the pressure to produce in 2025. They’ve paid Brock Purdy, cleared some cap space by trading away Deebo Samuel and expect Christian McCaffrey to back to his game-breaking self this season. The current state of their receiving corps, however, is giving them cause for concern. Their $30 million-per-year receiver Brandon Aiyuk doesn’t have a clear timetable to return from a season-ending knee injury suffered in 2024, leaving them with veteran Jauan Jennings and second-year wideout Ricky Pearsall as their top two options. McLaurin would fill out the group nicely and buy them plenty of time to be patient with Aiyuk while trotting out a threatening offense. Plus, after San Francisco sent Samuel to Washington to team up with McLaurin, the narrative crafted by a return shipment of McLaurin to the Bay Area would just be too juicy to ignore.

Micah Parsons’ cryptic ‘One Last Time’ tweet sends Cowboys fans spiraling – SI
Parsons quoted a tweet from Cowboys content creator “J Tuck,” which read, “I’m prepared to burn this app down.” The original message included a photo of Parsons and All-Pro cornerback Trevon Diggs laughing it up in training camp practice. What started the social media frenzy was Parsons reposting the message, adding his own GIF of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence with the caption, “One last time.”

Eagles Training Camp Practice Notes: Rookie linebackers making plays – BGN
POSITION BATTLE UPDATE — LINEBACKER: Jihaad Campbell took some reps as an edge rusher. He tried to bull rush fellow rookie Myles Hinton at one point but the Michigan alumnus stood his ground. Repping at off-ball linebacker, Campbell came down to meet fullback Ben VanSumeren in the hole and the rookie manhandled BVS to the ground (BVS got hurt on this play). Campbell is a very physical player. Smael Mondon Jr. had a standout performance on Thursday. I wrote his name down three different times for blowing up rushing attempts. Pretty wild that the Eagles have multiple off-ball linebackers playing well.

LBs R Us – Iggles Blitz
I remember the first time I walked into a Toys R Us. It was the summer of 1979. My parents were divorced and my dad lived in the Washington DC area. We went to visit him and he told my sister and I about this huge toy store. Growing up in NC in the 70’s, I was used to a toy store having about four aisles and limited choices. We walked into Toys R Us in Springfield, VA and it was like entering heaven. It could have held about 10 of the toy stores that I was used to going to. So many choices… Vic Fangio might feel the same way when he looks at his LB room. For the first time in a long, long time, the Eagles have good depth at LB. Legit depth. Starting LBs Zack Baun and Nakobe Dean are out with injuries and the Eagles still have a good trio of backers at practice. There were times in some recent years when they didn’t have a good starter, let alone five viable LBs. It really is impressive to see what the scouting staff and coaches have done. The scouts are finding the right players and the coaches are developing them.

Vic Fangio’s reworked Eagles defense is taking form – ESPN
The Eagles put full pads on for the first time in training camp Tuesday and it didn’t take long for rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell to make use of them. The Alabama product quickly closed on tight end Dallas Goedert as he moved into the flat and popped him to the ground just as Goedert hauled in a short pass from Jalen Hurts. It was a flash of the instincts, speed and physicality that helped convince the Eagles to draft a linebacker in the first round for the first time since 1979. “I do see him making small strides every day … and if he can keep making those strides,” said defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, “I think he’ll be what we had hoped he would be.” It is in those moments where you can see a piece of Fangio’s reworked defense taking form.

Eagles training camp report, Day 6: Jihaad Campbell remains a hit, Jalen Carter progresses – PHLY
With DeVonta Smith absent for the second consecutive practice, it was not a particularly efficient day from the passing game. The ball was on the ground more than it was at the beginning of camp, Jalen Hurts was under pressure (Jordan Davis and Jalyx Hunt both had would-be sacks), and Hurts needed to tuck the ball and run on a few occasions. Hurts also threw an interception in a hurry-up situation when Eli Ricks (playing his only rep with the first-team defense) pulled in the pass with no offensive player around him. It appeared the intended target might have slipped. After the interception, the first-team offense stayed on the field and could not move the ball.

Spadaro: Can Ben VanSumeren revive the fullback position in the Eagles’ offense? – PE.com
It has all flowed back easily for Ben VanSumeren, playing a position that is natural for him from his years of playing it in his youth and one that defines what he is on the field: tough, relentless, physical, and selfless. That just happens to be a position the Eagles are hoping to bring back into vogue in the NFL, something Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie made very clear in the spring. “We are going to try to resurrect the fullback position,” Lurie said in a phone call to SportsRadio 94WIP in a segment honoring the retired Brandon Graham. To that end, the Eagles informed VanSumeren, who began his Eagles career as a linebacker upon signing in the 2023 post-NFL Draft period and then moved to fullback last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury, that he would be a fullback – and special teams ace – on a full-time basis when he signed a one-year contract with the team in March.

Jeffrey Lurie and the Eagles want a new stadium. Cool. They can pay for it. – Inquirer
But there has been no public clamoring around here to replace the Linc, and neither Lurie nor anyone else can make the case that having a 22-year-old outdoor stadium in a Northeast city has hampered the Eagles’ efforts to become an elite team. The Vet was an albatross. The Linc is the home of the best team in the NFL. If Jeffrey Lurie wants to try to make things even better for the Eagles and their fans, no one has to stop him. But no one has to try to help him, either.

38 years after meeting, Eric Allen, Sterling Sharpe both headed to Hall of Fame – NBCSP
They first met at the 1987 East-West Shrine Game at Stanford when Eric Allen was a senior at Arizona State and Sterling Sharpe was a senior at South Carolina. “I get a chance to go into the Hall of Fame with a guy I had never met until the East-West All-Star game,” Sharpe said Thursday. “And going up against him and talking with him after practice at the hotel about, ‘So what do you guys teach and what technique do you use that can make me a better player?’” Allen and Sharpe faced each other five times — every year from 1990 through 1994 — when Allen was with the Eagles and Sharpe was with the Packers, and on Saturday, 38 years later, they’ll go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame together.

Cowboys free agency: Dallas to work out former team offensive lineman La’el Collins – Blogging The Boys
Clearly it makes sense for the Cowboys to look into veteran help along the offensive line, but La’el Collins’ name was probably not one that anybody saw surfacing any time soon. Collins obviously has a history with the team and was a prominent member of the offensive line in the early days of the Dak Prescott era, but it has been a minute to say the least. [BLG Note: Lol.]

Giants training camp: What we learned on Day 7 – Big Blue View
Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart did have a couple of really nice throws on Thursday. Like this one. […] Perhaps more interesting in the rookie quarterback’s development was something Daboll revealed before practice on Friday morning. At the end of Thursday’s practice, the Giants held an unscripted period where the offense and defense called their own plays. On one play, Dart was called for delay of game. Daboll thought the play was a great learning experience. “I actually liked his thought process,” Daboll said. “He was trying to install a play almost there on the four-yard line, something that he wanted to try. It didn’t work out so good. “So he was explaining a few different things, but that’s good for quarterbacks to be able to do that, and signal callers. You never know what’s going to happen in a game, a call gets put in late, something happens, the headsets are down. To be able to practice a situation like that, that could come up.”

Everything we know about the shooting at NFL headquarters in New York – SB Nation
Four people were killed in New York City on Monday evening in an apparent attack on NFL headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The gunman, identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura of Las Vegas, entered the building with a rifle, killing four people before taking the elevator to the NFL’s offices and continuing fire, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.