The Eagles have somehow avoided the injury bug all season long, but some things are inevitable. This is the first week where the team have had more than a couple of players miss practice with injury and with a showdown against Denver looming, they’ll need all of the players on this list to be at their best if they are to have a fighting chance.
Fletcher Cox is the one name we can exclude from concern as he was on a rest day today. Lane Johnson, Jason Kelce, and DeVonta Smith are all in the same boat, so no need to worry about the core of the offensive line or the teams’ top receiver.
However, the same cannot be said for Javon Hargrave, who was out today with a shoulder injury. Hargrave has easily been the teams’ most dominant defensive lineman this season and losing him would be a tough pill to swallow. Even tougher would be the pill containing the idea that Josh Sweat, the teams’ newly-paid EDGE1, could also be sidelined. The rotation behind Sweat has been less than stellar and I think it’s fair to say nobody is expecting Ryan Kerrigan to explode for a 3 sack game anytime soon.
The good news is that Sweat appears to be in the latter stages of concussion protocol and should be available this Sunday.
As Mike Kaye notes, Darius Slay, Rodney McLeod, and Avonte Maddox were all absent. Given that the Eagles are currently allowing quarterbacks to annihilate them at a historic pace, potentially losing three starters in the secondary certainly doesn’t bode well. The good news is that they were at least all at practice, so the injuries don’t appear to be too severe.
Hopefully the Eagles bring good news to the table tomorrow. Their conditioning has been top-tier this season and there have been very few soft tissue injuries. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire
