There’s no doubt about how much pressure Andre Dillard will experience when he enters his second NFL season.
After one year as a backup, the former pick of the first round takes over at the left tackle for a future Hall of Famer who will play just a few feet away.
The Eagles put a ton of confidence in Dillard after limited game action as a rookie. They always went with Dillard to left branch; they did not bring Jason Peters back until Brandon Brooks fell with an injury. Dillard is her future and that future begins in 2020.
This offseason, Dillard’s biggest goal was to put on more weight and he has. Brooks said earlier this offseason that Dillard is up to 335 pounds.
I have absolutely identified with him the areas in which we need to improve, ”offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland said recently. ‘And I would say that the one thing he has done a great job with is his strength. I think he is absolutely improved in the power department and that he needs to.
It was obvious that the Eagles’ decision to put Dillard on the right track last year was a complete disaster. It lasted only half until the Eagles pulled the plug on an experiment that was stupid from the start. But the Eagles have not lined up Dillard to play straight approach and they will not ask him again.
While it was not a great sign that he struggled so much on the right side of the line, the Eagles saw many more positive signs when he started tackling three games for Peters on left tackle than a rookie.
“If you look at the installation steps we now use to teach the players. The installation every day, here’s how you get over it: You’re about cutting out the best lesson films or clips for that concept, ”said Stoutland. ‘You may have 300 of these, but you can not use 300. You do not have that much time. For the group meeting, you might use three or four clips. When you go to your position meeting, you can have 30 clips.
‘To make a long story short, my point is that when you go back and analyze yourself, you go back and you look at these specific concepts at the same time. And then you start noticing Andre’s in many of these. I think he played more than 400, 500 plays, something like that. You see the change of direction, you see the speed of the foot and the body. ‘
The Eagles look back on his 2019 tape and see every reason they put him up. Dillard is athletic, he is fast, he has solid technique. He just really needed to get stronger and put it all together.
We’ll find out soon enough if that happens.
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