Philadelphia Eagles: Can J.J. Arcega-Whiteside and Mack Hollins co-exist?

After selecting J.J. Arcega-Whiteside 57th overall, is there still a spot on the Philadelphia Eagles roster for 2017 fourth-round pick Mack Hollins?

When the Philadelphia Eagles opted to add another tall, red zone-ready playmaking wide receiver in J.J. Arcega-Whiteside with their second selection in the second round of the 2019 NFL Draft, bypassing immediate Day 1 contributors like Nasir Adderley, Taylor Rapp, and Jachai Polite, it caused quite a few fans in the 215 to scratch their heads.

Sure, it’s never a bad idea to add another young, cheap, playmaker with upside to a team with a quarterback still coming back from injury, especially in this modern-era of five-wide spread offenses, but when the pick was announced, and the NFL Network rolled his tape from Stanford, it was hard not to wonder what this move meant for the future of second-year wide receiver Mack Hollins.

Buckle up Philly fans; the Eagles are going to have an exciting wide receiver competition come training camp.

More from Philadelphia Eagles

While some players appear to be obvious casualties of the numbers game, like AAF signees Greg Ward and Charles Johnson, and 2017 fifth-round pick Shelton Gibson, but before landing on IR in 2018 with an unfortunate groin injury, Hollins looked like a player not only destined to make the team but play a pretty significant part in Doug Pederson‘s offense.

Despite standing 6-foot-4, and weighing in at 221 pounds, Hollins was among college football’s premier deep threat options for now-Chicago Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky at North Carolina. Averaging 20.6 yards per catch over his three-year tenure at Chapel Hill, including an absolutely insane 24.8 average on 30 catches as a sophomore, Hollins looked like a major steal in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft, in large part due to suffering an ugly leg injury while running his 40 at the combine.

In that regard Hollins and Arcega-Whiteside could not be more different; as Hollins’ game is very vertical and JJAW is more horizontal, however, that may not matter going into 2019. With DeSean Jackson back as the Eagles’ deep threat, Alshon Jeffery in the fold as the Bird’s big-bodied red-zone target, and Nelson Agholor more or less able to split the difference, the team really doesn’t need either player to come in and catch 40, 50, 60 balls this season; they really just need players to develop moving forward.

With Agholor more or less playing on a lame duck fifth-year option, the Eagles could conceivably keep both players around as WR4 and WR5 respectively and hope that one, or both, can become serious contributors moving forward.

And in the interim, Hollins brings additional value that none of the Eagles’ other receiving options have in their repertoire.

Lauded for his special teams prowess coming out of college, Hollins logged 231 special teams snaps in 2017, good for the fifth most of any player on the roster and roughly half of the team’s total snaps over the course of the season. While it may be a bit unusual to have a 6-foot-4 gunner flying up and down the field on returns, it’s an asset that very few other teams around the league have in their repertoire; an asset Dave Fipp would certainly rather have than not.

Next. Exercising Carson Wentz’s fifth-year option easy decision for Eagles right now. dark

So can Mack Hollins and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside co-exist on the same roster? In the eyes of this writer, the answer is a resounding yes. With roughly five months left before the Philadelphia Eagles open up the season against Dwayne Haskins and the Washington Redskins, it looks like the team may have one of the deepest five-man wide receiver rotations in the NFL; a very good problem to have.

Home/Philadelphia Eagles