Chip Kelly wants his defense to eventually run a 3-4. Whether that happens in Year One hinges largely on Trent Cole and Brandon Graham.

“I think there’s a versatility in the 3-4 defense that you like, but, again, I think when Billy [Davis] said it, we’re going from a wide nine to a three‑four.  When do we get to a 3-4? I don’t know,” said Kelly following Friday’s practice. “We’re moving in that direction, but where we go really depends on us making a real thorough evaluation of how those guys at the outside linebacker are playing.”

Here’s what we saw during the Philadelphia Eagles’ first full-squad training camp practice.

Jason Peters didn’t understand the question.

A reporter asked him today if he could get back to being the player who made it to five straight Pro Bowls from 2007 to 2011.

“What you mean?” Peters asked. “I am that player. I don’t play no less than I played last year [2011]. I’m gonna go out there and give it 100 percent and let the fans and the coaches vote. That’s not even my goal. My goal is to get a division championship and get to the playoffs and go deep.”

The highlight from the Eagles first full-squad practice of training camp came courtesy of DeSean Jackson, who made a circus catch over Bradley Fletcher on a long bomb from Nick Foles down the right sideline. Head coach Chip Kelly spent part of his post-practice press conference talking about his wide receiver.

“One thing about DeSean that I’m real impressed with is how he came back in shape. He did a great job yesterday in the conditioning test,” said Kelly. “That proves to me that he spent a lot of time this summer investing in himself, and that’s what we talked about before we left, is I think the sky is the limit for him. He can be a real special player in this league but he’s got to make that decision that he wants to be. I think what he did, just watching where he is right now, kind of his pace and tempo in practice now, he’s what we want.

“We tell our players all the time we want guys to be like super balls, not tomatoes. A super ball bounces all the time and that’s what he is. He’s the ultimate super ball.”

Billy Davis isn’t sure where exactly the Eagles’ defense is going to end up in the next six weeks, but he knows it’s going to look nothing like the unit that took the field in 2012.

And so during the spring, the tape from last year’s team wasn’t of much use to him from a teaching standpoint. Instead, Davis decided to show the players tape of a different defense to use as a blueprint: the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“If you want to teach a technique, the best way is to show somebody doing it correctly,” Davis said. “Well, we don’t have any padded film of that so we use other teams in the league that play similar techniques. And I’ve got a heavy background with the Steelers and a couple coaches so we just chose to use some of those.”

As we mentioned earlier this week, Davis was 26 when he got his first job in the NFL as a quality control coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The names that were in the room with him back in 1992 still resonate in the league 21 years later.

LeSean McCoy has a simple goal for the 2013 season.

“I want to be more dominant,” said McCoy on Thursday upon arriving at camp. “The last few years I’ve had good years but I also have to be dominant, especially in this offense with the ability to run the ball more, where I can kind of take over a game. There have been flashes of it in the past but I have the ability to do it day in and day out, game in and game out. I think it’s a different story. Chip has shown that he runs the ball tons.

“Kind of getting back to that old stage where I’m used to taking over a game. I think with all the talent and the supporting cast around me, that should be easy.”

Maybe not easy, but the ingredients are there.

When we last heard from DeSean Jackson, he was on national TV predicting that Michael Vick would win the quarterback competition. Today, he stood by […]

No holdout and little hoopla this time around.

Jeremy Maclin, entering the final year of his rookie contract, reported to training camp on time as expected. He took part in OTAs and minicamp this spring and didn’t contemplate a holdout.

Why not?

“How many of those guys got what they wanted?” Maclin asked the gathered media rhetorically. “That’s how I look at it.”

The 25-year-old had a front-row seat for DeSean Jackson‘s contract squabble, saw that his methods got him nowhere. Maclin is taking a different approach.

No coach on Chip Kelly’s staff has been with the franchise longer than Ted Williams.

He started off as the tight ends coach for a couple years, was in charge of the running backs from 1997 to 2012 and is now back with the tight ends in his 19th season.

At 69-years-old, having seen plenty throughout the course of his career, Williams seemed like a good person to ask about what Kelly’s offense is going to look like once it’s unveiled during the regular season.

“I don’t think that anything’s going to change from what he knows,” Williams said. “It’ll be very, very similar to what you saw at Oregon because the play-calling… he needs to be comfortable with what he’s saying to the offense and how he’s communicating it. So you don’t just out of the box decide that you’re going to do something a certain way and you don’t feel comfortable with it. So it’s going to look like Oregon.”

“I joke with Mike all the time about in high school, my whole team had his cleats when he was playing in the NFL,” LeSean McCoy said back in 2010 following a comeback win over the Texans. “Now I’m in the same huddle with him, locker room with him, joking with him, texting him, calling him. I’m a fan of his. I just can’t show him too much. But it’s different. It’s the same for me, for Maclin, for DeSean. Us young guys, to be playing with him, we’re excited. We look up to him.”

This helps us put the current quarterback competition in its proper context. It shows us the challenge that may lie in front of Nick Foles.

When Chip Kelly hired Jeff Stoutland, he described the 51-year-old as a “cutting‑edge offensive line coach with old school toughness.”

After having spent 27 years in the college ranks, most recently during a two-year stint at Alabama, Stoutland is now making the jump to the pros. And if you think he’s pumped about the opportunity, well, you’d be right.

“I look at every day that I come to this complex, I’m jacked out of my mind,” Stoutland said Thursday morning. “I’m excited. I’m like, ‘What are we going to get done today? How am I going to improve today? What concept are we going to master today?’ “

Sights, sounds and observations from Wednesday’s training camp practice with rookies and selected veterans.

This morning, reporters will once again get a chance to speak with several of the Eagles’ assistant coaches about training camp and the upcoming season.

But there are a couple members of Chip Kelly’s staff who remain somewhat of a mystery.

The first is Kelly’s Chief of Staff, James Harris, who came over with him from Oregon.

The Eagles added another running back to their roster today, claiming William Powell (5-9, 207) off waivers.

Powell, 25, spent last year with the Cardinals, carrying 59 times for 216 yards (3.7 YPC) behind a horrible offensive line. He also had 19 catches for 132 yards.

“The overall yards per carry wasn’t great,” said GM Howie Roseman. “But he was making a lot of yards on his own.”

Chip Kelly brought in a guest speaker to address his team during the first couple days of training camp. Coleman Ruiz served 12 years as a Navy SEAL and offered advice to Eagles’ players about training, leadership and more.