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The 53 man roster fluidly forming

3 September 2017 Opinion

Many people will look at the 53 man roster and think “these are the guys who have made the cut”; however, I truly do not think the Eagles are done based off the decisions they made Saturday.

Eagles did several things to raise eyebrows across the fanbase Saturday. Most notably was how they divided up positional resources by retaining two quarterbacks, three tight ends, five running backs, six wide receivers, 10 defensive backs, 6 linebackers, 10 defensive linemen, three specialists and only eight offensive linemen.

I’ve stated before how ideally you wouldn’t want to keep 5 running backs but yet, the two rookies were in a battle being won by the player who went undrafted. Eagles moved up in the draft to select Donnel Pumphrey and I genuinely think he needs more time; whereas, Corey Clement appears to be pro ready.  It was the right call if the team did not want to move on from any of the RBs ahead of them on the depth chart.

Five running backs and only one offensive tackle for depth though? Is Howie crazy after all this time developing players like Dillon Gordon and Taylor Hart to be depth? Yet, Big V, who was getting called for penalties throughout his play time in preseason, was the only one kept outside the starting tackles. Why did we keep several interior linemen for depth but only one the outside? It brings me back to when Eagles traded OL Matt Tobin and Allen Barbre earlier this offseason. I felt good about it then because the team said how well the younger guys were doing at the position and how that made them confident in moving those guys. Well, apparently they didn’t like the younger guys all that much because they cut them. I don’t see a lot of quality-depth tackles being cut from teams so I guess we will have to hope for the best there.

In my opinion Nate Gerry, playing at a new position, showed more than Donnel Pumphrey and Shelton Gibson but he was the only drafted rookie the Eagles cut. My suspicion is Eagles believe they have a stronger shot at getting Gerry to practice squad versus skills position players. I can live with that.

My strongest knock on Eagles is how they stay competitively mediocre. They are consistently good.. not great. Eagles offseasons are entertaining but we pay guys to fix problems and haven’t done a good job overall at developing talent. Recent examples are guys like: Nelson Agholor and Eric Rowe. I pray that Nelson reaches his potential with the assistance of Coach Groh. I really think he can and I was pleased to see the Eagles take a vested interest in development this offseason by hiring someone with a successful track record. Additionally, I’m excited for Groh to develop the 3 young WRs the team held onto. I do fear the team whiffed on offensive line and cornerback development this offseason.

Overall, I know things are not set in stone yet. I’m letting things fall more perfectly into place on Sunday before making a final conclusion about how I feel regarding the 2017 roster. Looking at the roster as it stands right now, I have a lot of unanswered questions and believe there are more moves to come.

 

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