The Philadelphia Eagles officially announced four roster moves ahead of practice Wednesday morning. An overview:
SIGN
CB Trevor Williams
DT TY McGill
Waived
LB Dante Olson
ADDED TO WOUNDED RESERVE
TE Josh Perkins
We already wrote about Williams re-signing earlier this week.
The Eagles initially signed Williams, a former Penn State student, for a reserve / future contract in January. He has proven to be an attractive candidate for the Dark Horse to make the roster given he has made 27 starts in 36 career games.
But the Eagles released Williams in late July to bring their 90-player off-season roster back to the new 80-player tenure brought by COVID-19. The idea was that they didn’t have enough reps to give him as many as they might be interested in evaluating their younger players instead.
Williams is back now, however, and it’s unclear exactly what motivated the Eagles to make this move. They have a notable corner injury with Sidney Jones missing five straight days of practice. But all the other guys in that position seem to be in good health, so it’s not like the team is in desperate need of bodies there.
As for McGill, he was actually on the Eagles for a brief stint during the 2018 season. The Eagles cut DeAndre Carter to make room for him at the time. Maybe the Eagles wanted another defensive tackle body with Javon Hargrave missing in practice. You would think he’s far from being part of the team.
Olson didn’t really stand out in camp. It was thought he could sneak up on the roster or the practice squad since the Eagles are so skinny as a linebacker … but he also received the lowest guarantee of the team’s UDFA signings. So it shouldn’t be shocking that he’s gone.
The Eagles are reduced to six linebackers with Olson gone: Nathan Gerry, Duke Riley, TJ Edwards, Shaun Bradley, Davion Taylor and Alex Singleton.
On Sunday, the Eagles announced that Perkins was “out indefinitely” with some sort of upper body injury. It’s not clear exactly how he was injured, but what we do know now is that he’s out for the entire 2020 season. You can’t fire an injured reserve player when you put him on IR forward. that the list be reduced to 53.
Perkins’ injury potentially opens the door for undrafted rookie free agent Noah Togiai to make the team behind the top two tight ends Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert. The Eagles also have Caleb Wilson and Tyrone Swoopes in that position.
