PHILADELPHIA – It was a step in the right direction for Eli Stowers. The next few steps will be no less important as the rookie tight end tries to prove he can play at this level, regardless of what some thought after watching him in training camp and the preseason.

Stowers caught the first three passes of his NFL career in Sunday night’s loss to the Commanders. You could argue two were in garbage time, and they were, but they still mattered to him.

“It's always good to get the first one out of the way,” he said. “I think it was a good first step for me.”

Healthy again after six weeks on IR

Stowers was put on injured reserve just 48 hours before the season opener on Sept. 13. He was battling a quad injury, but his hamstring wasn’t 100%, either. It took him five games before he was able to make his debut, doing so against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football.

He only got one target. Against the Commanders a week later, he caught all three of his targets for 53 yards, including the Eagles’ most explosive play of the game, a 34-yard reception that was the final play of the 27-10 loss.

Stowers was further encouraged by the way he was able to move without feeling any pain or hesitation.

“He's been working his tail off to get healthy,” said offensive coordinator Sean Mannion. “He's mentally really, really sharp, especially at that position where there are a lot of different things that we're going to ask of you. His mental preparation's been outstanding. I think getting a chance for him to get into the games a little bit and kind of generate some more confidence while he's out there, I think will ultimately serve him well moving forward.”

Still learning how to be a tight end

It’s easy to forget that this is just the third year Stowers has played tight end, after a lifetime spent playing quarterback, and he is doing it at the highest level of the game.

“I think that there's a lot of carryover mentally from the quarterback standpoint,” he said, “but physically, there's a lot of nuances in technique at the tight end position that I've never done before, like fine-tuning the techniques and the blocking and route running, hand placement, catching the ball, all that kind of stuff.”

It’s also easy to forget just how long the year is for a rookie training for the combine, preparing for a pro day, then the draft, followed by rookie camp, OTAs, minicamp and training camp. There is very little downtime. Even the six-week gap between minicamp and training camp requires constant working out and studying the playbook.

That kind of relentless schedule can wear a player down, cause injury, and require a reset. Perhaps the six-week stint on IR will be Stowers’ reset.

“I'd say anytime you go up a level, it's gonna be more detailed, so I think here it's just the skills that I learned in college, fine-tune them even more so that at this level you can be competitive," he said. “My goal every single day is the same—put my best foot forward, work as hard as I can, and whatever my job is week-to-week, to attack that with the best of my ability.”