Philadelphia Eagles: Alshon Jeffery status for Week 1 still worth keeping an eye on
By Dan Parzych
While the Philadelphia Eagles face plenty of questions surrounding key starters being ready to go for Week 1, let’s not forget about Alshon Jeffery either.
As great as it was to witness the Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl last February, winning back-to-back titles will be a different story since this team has plenty of questions heading into September when it comes to the injury department.
Between Carson Wentz and Brandon Graham, it’s only a matter of time before the Eagles figure out which key players will be ready to go for that first battle of the year against the Atlanta Falcons.
Along with Wentz and Graham, Alshon Jeffery is another name worth keeping an eye on as well after the wideout started off camp on the PUP list.
In what may have been one of the best kept secrets last season, Philadelphia fans were shocked to hear the news surrounding Jeffery, and how he played the entire year with a torn rotator cuff, which obviously he had surgery on this offseason. Shortly after the procedure, Jeffery seemed confident enough that the timetable for his recovery would set him up to be ready for that first game against the Falcons.
However, that’s always easier said than done, as the Eagles are still uncertain heading into the month of August when it comes to whether Jeffery playing against the Falcons is realistic.
When looking at his recovery time, the last thing Philadelphia wants to do is rush Jeffery back on to the football field before he’s ready, and risk any sort of setback that would result in him missing additional time when it matters the most during the 2018 season.
Convincing Jeffery to come on board last year on a one-year deal before agreeing to a hefty four-year extension in the middle of the 2017 season was one of the best decisions the Eagles could have made.
After seeing Wentz struggle at times as a rookie, Philadelphia knew the importance of building a better offense around their franchise quarterback, and bringing Jeffery into the mix finally provided him with a reliable No. 1 wideout to work with.
Now that Jeffery is going to be around for the long run, Wentz has even more reasons to be excited about what the future holds, and it’s going to be amazing to watch these two continue to cause problems for opponents over the next couple of years. But before jumping that far ahead down the road, Jeffery and Wentz have the same focus at the moment, which is making sure they will be ready to go for Week 1.