October 23, 2017
The Philadelphia Eagles have released their Week 7 inactives. As noted in our injury report earlier this week, the Eagles head into this matchup relatively healthy, while the Redskins will be without their best defensive player in Josh Norman, and a significant number of contributors on IR.
• CB Ronald Darby: Darby's injury was originally diagnosed as a 4-6 week injury, and tonight marks six weeks and one day from when it occurred Week 1 against the Redskins. He was a limited participant in practice all week in practice, and never practiced in full.
The Redskins' leading wide receiver is Terrelle Pryor, who has just 209 receiving yards this season. That's good for 97th in the NFL.
• OG Chance Warmack: And the OG by committee approach is dead.
• LB Mychal Kendricks: A week after making 17 tackles against the Panthers, Kendricks was a late addition to the injury report with his yearly soft tissue injury.
• DE Steven Means: A numbers crunch at DE leaves Means on the bench.
• DT Elijah Qualls: With Fletcher Cox and Beau Allen both active, Qualls is not needed.
• DT Justin Hamilton: More DT depth.
• WR Shelton Gibson: Gibson struggled mightily catching the ball in training camp, but the team felt like his ceiling was worth keeping him on the roster. Gibson won't be seeing the field anytime soon.
• RB Darren Sproles: Sproles is done for the season with a torn ACL. On the field, Sproles was the Eagles' most well-rounded running back, as he can run inside, run outside, be a weapon in the passing game, and he's easily the team's best back in pass protection. Obviously, because of his small size, however, Sproles has been never been used as a 'workhorse' type of back, but he was typically on the field in the Eagles' most crucial situations. He was also the team's primary punt returner.
With Sproles out, Wendell Smallwood is the player who most closely mirrors Sproles' skill set, and Kenjon Barner has assumed punt return duties.
• CB Sidney Jones: Jones was eligible to come off the NFI list after Week 6, at which point he would have been allowed to practice for three weeks before the Eagles will have to decide whether to add him to the 53-man roster or shut him down for the season. The Eagles still have a couple more weeks to decide to take him off the NFI list before his three-week practice period.
• K Caleb Sturgis: Sturgis was placed on IR with a quad injury suffered Week 1 against the Redskins. He was replaced by newly minted Philadelphia legend Jake Elliott.
• S Chris Maragos: Maragos suffered a knee injury against the Panthers, and was placed on IR. He was the Eagles' best player on their kick coverage unit on special teams, and served as the Eagles' special teams captain.
• CB Josh Norman (rib): With Norman out and Bashaud Breeland hampered with a knee injury, the Redskins will have to rely on some combination of Breeland, Quinton Dunbar, Kendall Fuller, Fabian Moreau, and Joshua Hosley to cover Alshon Jeffery, Torrey Smith, Nelson Agholor, and Mack Hollins. In that event, you may see Doug Pederson try to spread the Redskins' defense out with some more empty backfield sets than normal.
• S Deshazor Everett (hamstring): Everett is known by Eagles fans as the cheap shot artist who laid out Darren Sproles with a helmet to helmet hit while Sproles was trying to field a punt last season.
• OT Ty Nsekhe (core muscle): Nsekhe is Trent Williams' backup at LT, which means the Redskins are basically screwed if Williams cannot play. (Williams is listed as questionable below.)
• OG Tyler Catalina (concussion): Backup guard.
• TE Jeremy Sprinkle: This is the guy who got arrested stealing from Belk at the Belk Bowl.
• LB Josh Harvey-Clemons: Deep LB depth.
• DL AJ Francis: Deep DL depth.
To note, Trent Williams was listed as questionable to play Monday night. He will play, but is not 100 percent.
• DL Jonathan Allen: Over the last two seasons in college, Allen was the best player on a dominant Alabama defense, posting 22.5 sacks and 30.5 tackles for loss. While not an elite athlete by any stretch, Allen does very clearly possess impressive quickness for a 286-pound man, and his country strength was evident when you watched him shed blocks. Leading up to the draft, some made the comparison to Fletcher Cox, which I can see. He was easily a top-five talent in this draft.
So if Allen was so good, why did he slip to pick 17? Well, Allen has an arthritic shoulder, which caused teams to lower his draft grade. The Eagles even had an opportunity to draft Allen at 14th overall, but opted instead for DE Derek Barnett.
Allen's injury was to his foot, which will need surgery. Obviously, that is unrelated to his arthritic shoulder. Allen was a handful for the Eagles' interior offensive line Week 1, and is a big loss to the Redskins.
• OLB Trent Murphy: Murphy tore his ACL and will miss the season on IR. He had a breakout season in 2016, collecting 9 sacks and 3 forced fumbles.
• S Su'a Cravens: Cravens was placed on the non-football/exempt list while he pondered whether or not he wants to retire. The Redskins have since shut him down for the season. Here's what we said about Cravens in our 2016 Redskins draft grades:
As a player, Cravens is one of the trendy LB/S hybrids in the same mold of the Cardinals' Deone Bucannon. His mental makeup, however, has both been praised and criticized. On the one hand, Cravens is thought of as a highly instinctual player with a nose for the football. On the other hand, I was told he interviewed horribly, and even told teams that he did not like practicing.
In other words, Cravens' situation does not come as a major surprise to me.
• K Dustin Hopkins: Hopkins suffered a hip rotator muscle strain, which is probably a big deal for a kicker. He's on IR. To replace Hopkins, the Redskins signed rookie Nick Rose, who is probably not going to hit any 61-yard game winning field goals.
• S DeAngelo Hall: Hall started the season on the PUP list, as he is still not yet fully recovered from a torn ACL suffered Week 3 last season against the Giants.
• NT Phil Taylor: Taylor was a first round pick in 2011 who hasn't played since 2014, but the Redskins took a shot on him with a non-guaranteed deal this season. He reportedly had a good camp, and was poised to start at NT until he tore a quad and landed on IR.
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