Injury Update: Eagles Lose Alshon For the Season

Dec 13

Injury Update: Eagles Lose Alshon For the Season

Players unable to stay healthy has been a common theme for the Eagles during the Doug Pederson era. Our Super Bowl season featured the loss of an All-Pro QB, Hall of Fame left tackle, and young stud middle linebacker among other injuries. The year after, the same QB was lost again and basically, every cornerback on the roster missed significant time. To really understand how bad it got, remember that there were snaps in the divisional playoffs (and I still don’t know how Philadelphia made it that far) last year where Josh Hawkins was matched up with Michael Thomas.

The theme continues this year, and the wide receiver position has been the main victim of the injury bug. After a ridiculous performance in Week One that gave Eagles fans false hope, DeSean Jackson has only seen a few minutes of game time over the past 13 weeks. Alshon Jeffery missed a few games earlier this season and clearly never returned to 100% before suffering a season-ending injury on Monday night. Nelson Agholor was healthy and ineffective for most of the season before a knee injury forced him to miss some game action. Those are the Eagles top three receivers and they’ve all missed significant time. In Monday night’s comeback win over the Giants, the Eagles finished the game with one healthy receiver. That receiver was Greg Ward, the QB-turned-wideout who wasn’t even on the active roster until a couple of weeks ago.

Along with Alshon Jeffery now sidelined for the rest of 2019, Lane Johnson is “week-to-week” with an ankle injury. Carson Wentz fell on Johnson’s leg while sustaining a sack, and we should all be grateful that the injury wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. Halapoulivaati Vaitai will step up in his absence, but the Eagles have been known to struggle when their All-Pro right tackle is shelved for any period of time. Jalen Mills suffered an elbow injury during the contest as well but he is fine according to Coach Doug Pederson. Then again, a lot of players were supposed to be fine and ended up disappearing. Remember how Jordan Howard supposedly had a stinger? Or DeSean Jackson was going to miss “a week or two”?

The full injury report from the most recent practice is as follows:

DID NOT PRACTICE:

WR Nelson Agholor (knee), DE Derek Barnett (ankle), T Lane Johnson (ankle)

LIMITED:

RB Jordan Howard (shoulder), CB Jalen Mills (elbow)

FULL:

LB Kamu Grugier-Hill (concussion)

The worst part about the Eagles injuries is that they seem to happen to starters only. Here’s the starting lineup from Week One and where they are now:

QB Carson Wentz (healthy) - Carson Wentz has played a game after December 10 for the first time since his rookie season

RB Jordan Howard (injured) - mysterious shoulder injury has kept him out for several weeks

WR Alshon Jeffery (injured) - out for season (foot)

WR DeSean Jackson (injured) - out for at least regular season (abdomen)

WR Nelson Agholor (injured) - has missed a few games (knee)

TE Zach Ertz (healthy) - still very, very good

LT Jason Peters (healthy) - healthy, has missed time, gets injured about once a game

RT Lane Johnson (injured) - week-to-week with a scary-looking ankle injury

LG Isaac Seumalo (healthy)

RG Brandon Brooks (healthy)

C Jason Kelce (healthy)

DE Derek Barnett (injured) - out with an ankle injury

DE Brandon Graham (healthy)

DT Fletcher Cox (healthy)

DT Malik Jackson (injured) - lost to injury in the first game of the season

LB Nathan Gerry (healthy) - started over Kamu Grugier-Hill who was injured

LB Nigel Bradham (healthy) - missed significant time this season

LB Zach Brown - no longer with team

CB Avonte Maddox (healthy) - started for injured Jalen Mills, missed time with a neck injury

CB Ronald Darby (healthy) - missed time with a hamstring injury

FS Rodney McLeod (healthy) - Now...

SS Malcolm Jenkins (healthy)

That is seven Week One starters currently injured and several others who have missed time or weren’t listed because they missed Week One. You can blame the training staff or you can blame luck, but regardless, it hasn’t been good.

-By: Micah Jimoh