Andrew DeCecho here from Inside thebirds.com. Welcome to our Rookie Diary series with Eagles running back Will Shipley.

Each week, I'll talk to the fourth round pick from Clemson to get his thoughts on his first season in Midnight Green.

We hope you enjoy. So before we start off, we've got to talk about your open field tackle on point.

That now gives you five.

I had to walk over and tell you that effort to me.

Yeah.

I mean, for you to be able to go down there, like a heat-seeking miss, like you're shot out of the cannon,

and you know, you see somebody in the open field, when you're shot out of the cannon, and, you know,

you see somebody in the open field when you're not accustomed to doing that. What did you see on

that? Yeah, you know, it's definitely different. You know, we had a light box with two dropers going

and get the gunners on the outside during my cadence. So kind of knew I was going to get a free

release. Always got to just double check, make sure the middle's covered, help out Rick, you know, Jack and Orrin as much as I can with the inside there.

But once I saw an open path, you know, that's when I just take off, try to, you know, show my

speed a little bit, get out, at least for, you know, the first 30, 40 yards, I'd say.

And then as I get to the kick returner, I kind of notice, you know, there ain't much around me.

I saw the two guys go out, so I know they're double teaming the gunners or just have different

hats on different people that are going down the field.

But I got past the guy that turned around and was trying to get, you know, most dangerous.

So I knew I was going to have a one-on-one opportunity and I've worked a lot with Coach Clay,

you know, Tyler Brown and Joe P. with open field tackling.

You know, it's not, like you said, it's not something I'm accustomed to.

Played a little bit of defense in high school, but not really after ninth grade.

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