Getty Eagles stars Jalen Hurts and Dallas Goedert trained together out in California during the 2022 offseason.
The Philadelphia Eagles still haven’t activated starting tight end Dallas Goedert as he continues to rehab from a nagging shoulder injury. He has been on the practice field this week and looked good in pass-catching drills on the sideline while running crisp routes in front of reporters.
All signs point to him returning Sunday, although head coach Nick Sirianni wouldn’t declare him good to go ahead of Friday’s practice. He doesn’t want to speak out of turn in case there is a last-second setback. Sirianni provided a final injury update on Goedert and starting right tackle Lane Johnson who is dealing with a sore abdomen.
“We’ll see with Dallas. I don’t usually give you guys [reporters] any information there because I don’t want to put a timetable on it,” Sirianni said. “I don’t want to say yes, and he doesn’t go — or no and he does go. So that doesn’t serve us any purpose for myself to do that right now.”
Sirianni continued: “He’ll go out there and practice today we’ll see what happens and we’ll see. Lane [Johnson] is feeling pretty good and you’ll see the injury report today. He practiced yesterday, felt pretty good, he’ll practice today.”
Sirianni Hypes Up Backup Tight Ends, Quez Watkins
The Eagles have gotten big-time contributions out of backup tight ends Jack Stoll and Grant Calcaterra since Goedert went down on November 14. Stoll has 6 catches for 68 yards over that four-game stretch, while Calcaterra has added 4 grabs for 41 yards. They have been solid and efficient, far from the dynamic playmaker Goedert is but impressive in their own right.
“You can’t wait until you get him back because he makes a ton of plays. He’s a great tight end, one of the best tight ends in the NFL,” Sirianni said of Goedert. “But you have to adapt when you’ve got to adapt. Like okay, it’s the same thing when you’re playing a certain style of defense, you might want to run a certain set of plays, but you might not be able to because they’re dictating that you can’t do that.”
Quez Watkins blowing by top slot-CB Kenny Moore II. 😮💨
Sirianni also heaped praise on slot receiver Quez Watkins who has 14 receptions for 122 yards and 2 touchdowns over that same stretch.
“We were able to get some other guys going with Dallas [Goedert] being out and Quez [Watkins] is the one guy that really has stepped up big-time with Dallas being down as far as his production goes,” Sirianni said. “The thing that you learn is just that you have a lot of capable guys. It reconfirms to you that you have a lot of capable guys on this offense.”
Reed Blankenship Still Missing at Practice
Safety Reed Blankenship (knee) missed a second straight day of practice on Thursday. He was the only Eagles player who didn’t participate in at least a limited capacity. Some notable names on the penultimate practice report included: WR A.J. Brown, G Landon Dickerson, T Lane Johnson, CB Darius Slay, CB James Bradberry, DE Josh Sweat, and C Jason Kelce. No need to worry as the majority of those guys were just getting rest days.
Thursday injury report
