Many NFL teams are dealing with an abnormal number of injuries this season after a shortened offseason and no preseason. The Eagles are taking it to another level.
On Saturday, the Eagles placed starting left tackle Jason Peters and would-be starting cornerback Trevor Williams on injured reserve. To fill out their, roster, the team signed wide receiver Travis Fulgham, Luke Juriga, and Adrian Killins to the active roster and temporarily promoted defensive back Grayland Arnold and wide receiver Deontay Burnett from the practice squad.
Ok, deep breaths. We’ll go through these one at a time. But first, let’s recap where the team is with injuries.
With Peters and Williams added to the pile, the Eagles now have a whopping 13 players on injured reserve or PUP (physically unable to perform).
That’s bananas, but it’s nothing new for the Eagles during the Doug Pederson/Howie Roseman era. No one seems to know why this keeps happening, but this team has been devastated by injuries pretty much since Pederson arrived in Philadelphia.
Is it the practices, the training staff, the strength and conditioning staff and/or program, the medical staff, something else, or some combination of all of the above? No one really knows, and the team has overhauled some of the above departments in recent years but continues to see the same results.
In any event, the injury bug is biting them again. In addition to the 13 players mentioned above, DeSean Jackson, J.J. Arcega-WhiteSide, Avonte Maddox, and Alshon Jeffery are all going to miss the team’s Week 4 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.
That’s 17 players, or nearly a third of the entire 53-man roster.
Anyway, let’s get to the roster moves.
Jason Peters and Trevor Williams to IR
Jason Peters was listed as questionable for Sunday’s game but was surprisingly put on injured reserve on Tuesday with a toe injury. If you watched the team’s first three games, then you know that Peters was not exactly playing well. Jordan Mailata is reportedly going to start at left tackle, which should be an adventure (but it’s obviously worth seeing what you have in him at this point).
In case you missed it, I gave a quick rundown of the recent Jason Peters timeline on Twitter:
Yikes.
As for Trevor Williams, he was cut multiple times in the offseason but found a home on the roster as a veteran backup cornerback with experience starting on the outside after the team moved on from Rasul Douglas and Sidney Jones. With Avonte Maddox out this week and reportedly longer, the expectation was that he would be given the first crack at starting alongside Darius Slay.
Now, he’s headed to injured reserve and will miss the next three weeks.
As for who starts at outside cornerback this week, that is a great question. Does the team put the undersized Nickell Robey-Coleman or Cre’Von LeBlanc on the outside? Does Jalen Mills move back to cornerback for a few weeks? Does Grayland Arnold see any snaps?
The guess here is that Mills moves to cornerback for at least this week, and the team tries to piece together to picture at safety with some combination of Rodney McLeod, Marcus Epps, K’Von Wallace, and Arnold.
Whatever they do, it’s a mess that they are going to have to deal with on a snap-by snap basis.
My second guess is that the team leaves Mills at safety or just tries to play a “matchups” game, with each of Slay, Robey-Coleman, LeBlanc, and Mills following certain players regardless of where they line up. For example, Slay follows Samuel, NRC follows Aiyuk, Mills follows Kittle, and LeBlanc follows whoever else is left depending on the package.
Jim Schwartz and the Eagles reportedly wanted to employ more of a “hybrid” and flexible (“positionless”) defense this season, but I don’t think this is quite what they had in mind.
WR Travis Fulgham vs. WR Deontay Burnett
When you saw the names of the players who were signed to the active roster rather than simply being promoted, you may have scratched your head a bit. Why would Fulgham be signed to the active roster over Deontay Burnett, for example?
Here’s why.
If the Eagles sign a player from the practice squad, they can’t send them back down without exposing them to waivers. If they merely promote a player, they can return them to practice squad without putting them on waivers.
With Quez Watkins, Alshon Jeffery, and/or DeSean Jackson (throw JJAW on this list if you want, too) expected back soon, the need for a wide receiver is temporary. While Jeffery, Jackson, and JJAW are all on the active roster, Watkins is still technically on injured reserve, even though he’s practicing.
And as we outlined above, the Eagles have a ton of injuries right now. They are going to need players at other positions, and Fulgham is going to lose his spot. That means he is going to be exposed to waivers.
By promoting Burnett instead of signing him, the team is protecting him from waivers. The catch, of course, is that teams can only promote players twice this season without exposing them to waivers. This is Burnett’s second promotion.
Still, the team signing Fulgham over Burnett doesn’t mean that they value the former over the latter. It actually means the opposite. The team has protected Burnett every week this season, and they would like to keep him around if they can.
C Luke Juriga and RB Adrian Killins
Juriga and Killins were both undrafted free agent signings this offseason. Juriga signed just minutes after the NFL Draft ended and was given $116,000 in guaranteed money, so the team clearly liked him. With multiple injuries along the offensive line, he adds some temporary depth.
Killins was a fan-favorite in training camp due to his speed, but he ultimately didn’t crack the final roster. However, he saw snaps at wide receiver in addition to running back this Summer, so don’t be surprised if we see him in the slot at some point on Sunday night.
DB Grayland Arnold
Like Juriga and Killins, Arnold was an undrafted free agent signing this Spring. We published a Grayland Arnold Undrafted Player Profile back in April. Arnold was a cornerback in college but has notably been listed as a “DB” (as opposed to CB or S) with the Eagles. Does the team view him as a hybrid player who can play multiple positions?
Arnold will likely contribute on special teams on Sunday night, but it would not be all that unsurprising to see him on the field on defense at some point given the team’s injury situation.
However, Arnold is small and, if we are to trust his MockDraftable.com spider chart, not very athletic. So, I don’t think he is going to be seeing snaps on the outside any time soon. The team is probably viewing him as a Safety/Slot CB hybrid, hence the DB designation.
The Week 4 WR/CB situation
Ok, that is a lot to take in. Where does that leave the Eagles at wide receiver and cornerback for Sunday night’s matchup against the 49ers? Well, it’s going to look something like this:
All I would add is that I would not be surprised to see any of Miles Sanders, Boston Scott, and Adrian Killins get snaps at wide receiver. It’s also possible, if not probable, that Mills plays at least some cornerback on Sunday.
Also, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside is listed as doubtful. Even if he is active, I don’t see him playing very many snaps.
To sum up this 1,300-word article in just five words: Sunday night might be UGLY.
