Philadelphia Eagles make right choice releasing Donnel Pumphrey
By Dan Parzych
As the final roster cuts begin, the Philadelphia Eagles made the smart move by releasing Donnel Pumphrey.
Thank goodness the preseason for the Philadelphia Eagles is officially over, as the team can focus more on key players getting healthy along with preparing for their home opener against the Atlanta Falcons, a game that will feature plenty of celebrations after winning the Super Bowl.
Winning the Super Bowl despite key injuries to players like Carson Wentz and Jason Peters was one thing, but defending their title is going to be even more difficult for the Eagles heading into 2018, but that doesn’t mean Doug Pederson won’t have his players ready.
Heading into the new season, Pederson hopes to see Philadelphia continue having one of the top backfields in the NFL, as the Eagles head coach benefitted from riding the hot hand with a trio of impact players during the team’s Super Bowl run.
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LeGarrette Blount may no longer be part of the picture, but with Jay Ajayi and Corey Clement returning along with Darren Sproles finally healthy, Philadelphia’s backfield should be strong once again.
As for the running backs beyond these three, the Eagles had a few different candidates to consider for the No. 4 spot, including former San Diego State star Donnel Pumphrey. Dating back to last year when Philadelphia used a fourth-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft on the running back, the Eagles hoped Pumphrey would end up working his way into an effective role in the backfield.
Instead, it looks like the Eagles decided to go in a different direction after Pumphrey was listed as one of the early cuts from Saturday before the deadline to trim rosters down to 53 players.
When looking at how Philadelphia saw a surprise impact from Josh Adams throughout the preseason to make the battle for the No. 4 spot at running back a little more interesting, it seemed more likely that Pumphrey would be the odd man out in the backfield.
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Nothing against Pumphrey, but this decision seems like a move that will give Philadelphia their best chance of continuing to have a top backfield to build off of last year’s success. Most likely, Pumphrey will land back on his feet with another team in need of help at the running back position, so it will be interesting to see what happened for the former fourth-round pick over the next couple of days.