Philadelphia Eagles: You can never have too much quality depth

There has been whispering about the Philadelphia Eagles either trading Jason Kelce or adding a running back. Both are easier said than done.

On Monday, news broke that Max Unger would miss time for the Saints. While the timeframe of his injury was overblown, immediately, Philadelphia Eagles fans called for a Jason Kelce for Mark Ingram swap. While in theory, this trade may have made sense, it wouldn’t have been a great move for either team.

The Saints, while they signed Adrian Pederson, aren’t sure what kind of production they’ll be able to get out of him. Will he stay healthy as his career enters a downturn? We don’t know. Because of that, Ingram is a valuable backup for the Saints, not an expendable piece in the rotation. For the Philadelphia Eagles, Kelce is coming off of a Pro Bowl season and while he leaves much to be desired, he is a starting caliber NFL Center.

Although the Philadelphia Eagles have two other centers on the roster in Issac Seumalo and Tyler Orlosky, you don’t trade your starting center to plug in an unproven rookie or second-year player overnight. Seumalo looked competent in his brief time filling in at guard and tackle last season but you’d like your franchise quarterback to have the best possible offensive line to protect him.

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For this Eagles team, that line is (from left to right) Jason Peters, Allen Barbre, Jason Kelce, Brandon Brooks, and Lane Johnson. That’s not too bad of an offensive line if everyone stays healthy. Even if they don’t, the Eagles have ample depth to fill spaces along the line with Seumalo, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, Stefen Wisniewski, and possibly Chance Warmack. Trading Kelce now likely would move Seumalo into the starting lineup.

When the inevitable Jason Peters injury happens, Vaitai likely moves into the lineup as well. This is when the Philadelphia Eagles begin to pray that nothing else goes wrong along the line. Teams don’t complain about having too much depth because an NFL season is a long, physical grind. People get hurt and it’s a plus to have quality replacements for them. The offensive line is such a critical unit to the team’s success that unless they’re blown away with an offer, the Eagles need to stand pat.

The flipside of this situation is the state of the Philadelphia Eagles’ running backs.

The Eagles have five running backs under contract for next season. They are Ryan Mathews, Darren Sproles, Wendell Smallwood, Byron Marshall, and Donnel Pumphrey. The team also signed Corey Clement as an undrafted free agent out of Wisconson. While there is no true bell cow back in this group of guys, it’s not a bad stable of running backs either.

Last season, Ryan Matthews played in 13 games, starting eight. He carried the rock 158 times for 678 yards or an average of 4.3 yards per attempt. He also added 115 more yards on 13 receptions. These aren’t bad numbers at all especially when Matthews managed nine total touchdowns. While he isn’t a feature back at this point in his career, the Philadelphia Eagles could do much worse than having Matthews take the majority of their touches.

Darren Sproles produced his best rushing season since 2011 by compiling 438 yards on the ground. He also had another 427 through the air. 1,658 total yards from two lead backs who are essentially splitting time isn’t too shabby. With the expectation for Smallwood to improve and Pumphrey to contribute that’s four serviceable running backs for next season. Not a bad number to move forward with for the birds. Last year, the Philadelphia Eagles carried 4-5 running backs during the season and they’ll likely do the same this season.

Adding another running back who is not a true lead running back to the roster would only complicate what is already a tough rotation to manage. At this point in the offseason, starting running backs aren’t sitting waiting to be picked up by teams. It is more important for the Eagles at this juncture of the offseason to roll into training camp with both their running back core and offensive line fully intact.

Next: The likelihood of full recovery for rookie Sidney Jones

Thanks to improvements at wide receiver, the Philadelphia Eagles offense will take a step forward. The running backs will perform better because the receivers can stretch the field. The offensive line will play better because there will be a mixture of playcalling. This can’t be jeopardized by trading Kelce now.

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