It was the torn Achilles heard around the Delaware Valley late Monday evening. Brandon Brooks’ season was over before it started.
But one question lingered into the afternoon on Tuesday. How exactly did the injury happen? NBC Sports Philadelphia reported Brooks ruptured his right Achilles tendon while working out at the NovaCare Complex but they never revealed what he was doing there.
Well, Brooks took to Twitter to squash the secret. The three-time Pro Bowl right guard was running shuttle sprints and heard a pop as he was pushing off. That was it. Game over. See everyone in 2021.
“I’ve noticed a lot of ppl wondering how it happened so let me be clear,” Brooks wrote. “I was doing 60-yard shuttles and on 7/8 I went to touch the line push off and POP. That being said the work doesn’t stop because of an injury the direction I’ll continue to move is forward. All love.”
The Eagles haven’t announced yet how they plan to replace Brooks’ spot on the offensive line, although head coach Doug Pederson said they would explore “a lot of different scenarios.”
“We obviously haven’t made any decisions,” Pederson said. “At this time, we are just feeling for Brandon and want to make sure everything goes smoothly with him and getting him back on track for the future.”
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Pederson Talks Players Who Could Replace Brooks
How do you replace the best right guard — and arguably best offensive lineman — in football? Not easily. But the Eagles do have a few internal candidates for the job. Pederson listed a few guys high on his radar but left the door wide open for signing someone in free agency.
Under normal circumstances, instead of a shortened offseason due to COVID-19, the Eagles would have been able to evaluate their rookies at spring minicamps. There would be tape on fourth-rounder Jack Driscoll and sixth-rounder Prince Tega Wanogho. Not to mention extended looks at veterans Sua Opeta, Nate Herbig and Matt Pryor.
Does that present a setback now that Brooks is done for the year?
“I don’t want to call it a setback,” Pederson said. “But at the same time we do have some young players that played for us last year that are going to have to take a big step forward, and some of the guys that you mentioned. Pryor, he played last year at the end of the season. Herbig got in a game there at the end of the year.”
The head coach made sure to stress that those guys are going to have come into camp with a greater sense of urgency. Some of them were already on the bubble and now they are fighting for a possible starting role.
“Things are going to move fast,” Pederson said. “Things are going to move fast and we as coaches need to evaluate these players. I have to put them in a position to be successful to show what they can do and that’s everything that we are in the process of doing right now leading up to camp.”
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Eagles’ Brandon Brooks Reveals How He Tore Achilles Tendon