January 03, 2018
The Philadelphia Eagles announced that they signed a handful of players to futures contracts. They were CB Elie Bouka, P Cameron Johnston, WR Marquess Wilson, and TE Adam Zaruba. They will not play for the Eagles this year, as their contracts will take effect when the new league year begins in March.
A quick snapshot of each player:
• CB Elie Bouka: Bouka has great size at 6'1, 205, and was in the Arizona Cardinals' camp before being released with an injury settlement and landing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the CFL. Bouka played corner for the Cardinals but moved to safety in the CFL. The Eagles like their safeties to have corner experience, so expect them to give him a look there, even if they list him as a corner.
• P Cameron Johnston: Johnston was in Eagles camp this summer, and there was some speculation that the Eagles might go with him over Donnie Jones. Ultimately (and rightfully), that did not happen, and we were all rewarded with Jones' sweatpants incident.
• WR Marquess Wilson: Wilson is a bigger receiver at 6'4, 206, with some downfield receiving ability. He has appeared in 31 NFL games, starting 14, catching 56 catches for 777 yards and 3 TDs over a four-year career. Joe Douglas was in Chicago the year Wilson started six games for the Bears, catching 28 passes for 464 yards (16.6 YPC) and a TD. In three years at Washington State, Wilson had impressive numbers, catching 189 passes for 3207 yards (17.0 YPC) and 23 TDs.
Wilson had an odd end to his career at Washington State, shown at the 1:10 mark here.
• TE Adam Zaruba: Zaruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take you... Sorry. Like Johnston above, Zaruba was in Eagles training camp this year as well. Previously, he was a Canadian rugby star. Zaruba's bio on the CanadaSevens website:
Zaruba hit the ground running in 2014-15 after he was named in the squad for the series’ opening tournament at the Gold Coast Sevens. He wouldn’t look back, as Zaruba played in all nine legs of the Sevens Series in his debut campaign. The North Vancouver native had been playing for Capilano RFC in Vancouver for a number of year’s before his call-up to the national side and still at a good age, Zaruba has a great deal of promise in front of him.
So, uh, that sounds good, I think. In camp, Zaruba didn't have any kind of impact, but the team must has seen enough to think they can continue to try to unlock his football potential.
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