December 21, 2021
The Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Football Team have until 4:00 p.m. today to activate any players who remain on the COVID list.
As of 11:00 a.m. on game day, the Eagles have two such players on their COVID list — starting LG Landon Dickerson, and reserve LT Andre Dillard.
Washington has 17 players on their COVID list, including quarterbacks Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen. Appearing on 106.7 The Fan in Washington D.C. this morning, Ron Rivera explained that Heinicke and Allen will be tested twice today — once already this morning, and then later again today, in the early afternoon.
While the healthy members of the team are already in town, Heinicke and Allen — and the rest of Washington's eligible players on the COVID list for that matter — are standing by, ready to travel Philly if they are cleared before 4:00 p.m. If neither player is ready to go, Rivera acknowledged that the starter will be Garrett Gilbert, who Washington signed off of New England's practice squad on Friday.
"Garrett played for us in Carolina," Rivera said. "He actually played in a couple of games. He has a lot of familiarity with what we do, so he came back and picked everything back up right away. Last year, if you watched the Cowboys-Pittsburgh game, he came in and played a heck of a game in a loss. They almost won. He’s a very steady quarterback. He has good arm strength, can make all the throws. So we’ve got good familiarity with him."
However, Rivera lamented the wind that Washington practiced through on Sunday, which he said was challenging in getting Gilbert situational reps.
“We had three days of work with him. The only disappointing thing was on Sunday, which was really typically our ‘fast Friday,’ where we want it to be situational football, very fast-paced. It was 25-30 mile per hour winds on the practice field, so we were trying to get the timing down. I wish we hadn’t had the winds. It would have been great to have a nice calm day so the guys could have really worked on the timing, but he went through it and made the right reads and the right throws, but with the wind it was tough.”
No word on whether or not Washington petitioned the NFL to postpone the game another couple of days so they could have a less windy practice.
As for the Eagles' quarterbacks, it is expected that Jalen Hurts will be a go Tuesday night over Gardner Minshew, but Rivera explained that the two-day postponement allowed them the opportunity to fully prepare for both.
“For the most part we prepared for both," he said. "Getting a few extra days of practice I think really benefited us in terms of making sure we were completely prepared.”
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy's RSS feed to your feed reader
