Philadelphia Eagles: How is Noah Togiai fairing with the Indianapolis Colts?

Was waiving Noah Togiai a blessing in disguise for the Philadelphia Eagles?

For the first time in the Doug Pederson-era, the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t have a rookie undrafted free agent on their opening day roster.

Now granted, this could be directly attributed to the team’s 10 player haul in the 2020 NFL Draft, eight of which were on said active roster, but it also speaks to the general lack of buzzy players who opted to take their talents to the City of Brotherly Love after failing to hear their names called on draft weekend.

The team did land Khalil Tate, one of the more intriguing names on the post-draft open market, but the Arizona quarterback-turned potential NFL wide receiver was waived almost immediately due to the lack of a preseason.

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No, after retaining players like Paul Turner, Destiny Vaeao, and Dillon Gordon in 2016, Corey Clement in 2017, Bruce Hector (remember him?) in 2018, and Nate Herbig in 2019, the Eagles simply didn’t find any member of their 13-man undrafted free agency class worth of a spot on their initial 53 man roster. Not even the player many assumed was a borderline lock to make the roster: Noah Togiai.

Measuring in at 6-foot-4, 246 pounds, Togiai is a hyper-athletic tight end from Oregon State that many viewed as a potential successor for Trey Burton. Though he never really ‘produced’ in the statistical sense over his five-year tenure at Oregon State, having never surpassed 500 yards or five touchdowns in a single season, his size, speed, and athletic gifts led many to believe that he would one day be able to put it all together and produce as a tertiary option behind Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert.

Who knows, with Ertz vying for a new contract before the season and Goedert set to hit the open market in 2021, maybe Togiai would really flash in camp and make one of those players expendable? That obviously didn’t happen, but hey, that was the idea at least.

With only Richard Rodgers, Tyrone Swoopes, and Caleb Wilson locked-in as legitimate challengers for the third tight end role coming out of camp – a camp without any open practices, I may add – many assumed Togiai was a virtual lock to make the roster, as the Eagles have run out three-tight end packages with some frequency over the past few years and, *spoiler alert*, you need three tight ends to use said packages.

Seems rather obvious, right? Well, apparently not to everyone.

While I’m sure the Eagles would have loved to have stashed Togiai on their practice squad to start out the season, especially after watching Goedert head to IR after suffering an ankle injury in Week 3, it was never meant to be. The Indianapolis Colts, and former Eagles’ offensive coordinator Frank Reich, swooped in and claimed the West Valley City, Utah native out from under their noses, ending any speculation that the 23-year-old would one day wear a midnight green jersey in front of Philly fans.

Huh, in a way, I guess the Eagles technically did have a member of their UDFA class land on an active roster for the fifth straight season; it’s just too bad it wasn’t their own. Funny how that works out.

Now paired up with actual Trey Burton, Lawrence ‘Trey’ Burton III, surely Togiai is tearing it up with the Colts and gearing up for a playoff run on an actually good team, right?

Woah, Woah, Woah, not so fast, my friends.

Yes, Togiai made the Colts’ active roster and has remained on it all season long, but through the Colts’ first 11 games of the season, he’s only been active for four games without a single offensive stat to his credit on 72 career snaps.

Mo Alie-Cox, by contrast, has appeared in 10 of the team’s eleven contests in 2021 and is already the proud owner of a career-high 24 catches for 328 yards on the season. While MAC’s uptick in playing time shouldn’t be too surprising, as both Burton and Jack Doyle have missed time due to injury, it’s never a good sign when a former college basketball player who went undrafted out of VCU is earning snaps over a lifelong tight end.

And to make matters worse? The motley crew of replacement tight ends Howie Roseman has cobbled together to replace Ertz, Goedert, and Togiai for major stretches of the season has actually held up pretty darn well.

Sure, they haven’t all been home runs, as both Jason Croom and Hakeem Butler were waived by the Eagles after less than a month on the active roster, but for the most part, Richard Rodgers and Caleb Wilson have held their own when their numbers have been called.

As improbable as it may seem, Rodgers is having a bit of a breakout season at the tender age of 28 – having already recorded his second-most catches, receiving yards, and touchdowns in 11 games with four starts. Though he doesn’t possess Togiai’s plus-athleticism, Rodgers always seems to find himself in the right position to make plays, and even found himself on the right side of a tipped, but ultimately meaningless, Hail Mary touchdown in the Birds’ Monday Night Football loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

And as for Wilson? While he’s yet to catch his first NFL ball of any kind in the three games he’s appeared in as a practice squad elevatee, the former UCLA product-turned-Mr. Irrelevant remains a young, moldable tight end with roughly the same upside as Togiai.

In hindsight, maybe the Eagles were cool with letting Togiai test waivers because they simply didn’t see too much of a difference between him and their other third-string tight end options?

Imagine that, Eagles fans getting a little too attached to a player the franchise couldn’t care less about. When has that ever happened before?

Could Noah Togiai one day transform himself into an elite-level tight end? Sure, who’d have ever guessed that George Kittle would become the best in the business when he was drafted 146th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft? But after watching his career fail to take off in Indianapolis, maybe the Philadelphia Eagles’ apathetic willingness to subject the former Oregon State product to waivers was justified after all.