If there's one thing that Eagles fans have grown accustom to over the past few years, it is dominating performances by the defense at the expense of the offense in preseason camp. Just don't tell that to Boston College sophomores Dave Shinskie and Mike Marscovetra.
As part of the Eagles first intrasquad scrimmage, which was closed to the public, both Shinskie and Marscovetra's final stat lines weren't half bad after all. Shinskie completed 9-of-14 for 81 yards and a touchdown pass to Clyde Lee. Marscovetra went 7-of-9 for 52 yards and a rushing TD, with his longest completion 11 yards.
Three other Eagle signal callers saw time in Saturday's scrimmage, including true freshmen Chase Rettig (2-of-5, 14 yards), Josh Bordner (4-of-6, 48 yards) and Shane Cranmore (1-of-1, six yards).
The best sign that there's been improvement at the quarterback position is that none of the five quarterback candidates threw an interception. Compare the above statistics to the stats coming out of the Eagles first scrimmage a season ago. Last year, Shinskie completed just 3-of-8 passes for 22 yards and an interception; Marscovetra went 5-of-6 for 45 yards and an interception. The other two QB candidates from last year's camp combined to go 6-of-12 for 24 yards and an interception.
Despite decent performances from all five Eagles quarterbacks, coach Spaziani maintains that the position battle is far from settled.
"We saw some good things," said Spaziani. "But we’ve got a long way to go. "It looks like a battle between all the greens [QBs wear green jersies]."
Shinskie remains the front runner to win the starting job, based largely on his experience last year as the Eagles QB. After taking over the starting role, Shinskie helped the Eagles compile a 6-4 record, throwing for over 2,000 yards and five touchdowns. It's expected that two of the three Eagles freshmen quarterbacks will redshirt this season.
Even though Shinskie appears to be the favorite, it looks like the Eagles will have a healthy quarterback position battle for the remainder of fall camp.