Philadelphia Eagles: Joe Ostman and what could have been

On Monday, the Philadelphia Eagles were officially awarded Jimmy Moreland by the NFL after he was waived by the Houston Texans on Friday.

The news, unsurprisingly, was met positively, even if it generated a whole new bunch of questions regarding why the Birds were loading up on slot cornerbacks and how that could affect players like Avonte Maddox, Marcus Epps, and Josiah Scott (more on that here).

But for one new player to join the team, another has to say goodbye, potentially to their dreams of playing professional football forever, and on Monday, that player was Joe Ostman, the UDFA rusher out of Central Michigan who has been attempting to make the team since all the way back in 2018 and was officially waived with a failed physical designation, according to John McMullen of SI.

So, with a long and winding road that almost ended in prolonged NFL success on more than a few occasions probably at its end, why not look back at Joe Ostman’s run with the Philadelphia Eagles and lament what could have been? A viking funeral for a player who gave it their all, if you will.

The Philadelphia Eagles can never doubt Joe Ostman’s effort level.

When the Philadelphia Eagles officially announced their UDFA class shortly after the 2018 NFL Draft, Joe Ostman wasn’t exactly the belle of the ball.

Sure, he received some money guaranteed, which is more than many of his undrafted cohorts, but his $20k in guaranteed money ranked sixth among his classmates, behind arguably bigger names like Josh Adams, Toby Weathersby, Bruce Hector, Chandon Sullivan, and Jeremy Reaves. Still, even coming out of Central Michigan, folks raved about Ostman’s effort level and his willingness to outwork every other player on the field, so certainly, there was at least a chance he’d stick around, even if the defensive line was particularly deep heading into that particular season.

And yet, as the live tweets from any given day of training camp populated Twitter feeds the world over, Ostman’s name kept coming up, whether due to a flashy “sack” on a reserve quarterback like Nate Sudfeld or for simply running around the field and giving it his all snap after snap. While Ostman didn’t make the initial 53-man roster, he signed with the practice squad on the very next day and started his long and storied run with the Eagles.

After working his tail off for the entirety of 2019’s organized team activities, things were looking good for Ostman to make the roster heading into his second summer as a professional athlete, but on August 6th, disaster struck, and the Central Michigan prospect – who, funny enough, are also the Eagles – tore his ACL and was placed on season-ending IR shortly thereafter.

An unfortunate setback? You bet, but Ostman rehabbed and was right back on the field in 2020, where he once again made the practice squad after another solid summer. Ostman ultimately appeared in three games without a start as a practice squad elevatee, and while he didn’t log a sack or make a particularly expansive impact, he did log a single solo tackle over his 71 combined snaps between defense and special teams and forever etched his name in the NFL game logs in perpetuity.

Surely things were looking up for Ostman heading into his fourth professional summer, and even after the addition of Milton Williams, Tarron Jackson, and to a lesser extent Patrick Johnson in the draft, there was still a puncher’s shot that he’d finally crack the initial 53 man roster… until he suffered yet another injury – this time an undisclosed one – that resulted in a season-ending trip to IR – an injury that apparently hasn’t recovered enough to pass a physical.

Could Ostman return later this spring, at some point during the summer, or even later once he’s healthy enough to pass his physical? You bet, but it feels far more likely that we’ve seen the last of Ostman, who somehow spent more training camps with the Eagles than games he appeared in.

By all accounts, Joe Ostman is a really good guy. He’s a hard worker, a smart football player, and the sort of team-first fella that every coach, coordinator, or general manager would like to fill out the bottom of his roster with. If he could have just stayed healthy, maybe we’d be looking at Ostman’s career in a very different light, but alas, it just wasn’t meant to be; the Philadelphia Eagles never got to see the best of Joe Ostman on the field, even if they saw it day after day after day on the practice field.