When you’re one of the best teams in the league and a top Super Bowl contender like the Philadelphia Eagles are, every single roster spot is at a premium.
Making the final 53-man roster is a tough task on any of the league’s 32 teams, but to stick around on a Super Bowl contender is especially tough. There’s no room for holding onto someone who isn’t either capable of being a legitimate contributor (as a starter or if called upon as a backup) or capable of developing into one very quickly.
And sometimes being a capable contributor isn’t even enough. If that contribution comes in a replaceable niche role, with a bad attitude in the locker room or with a salary cap number that’s hard to stomach, players can find themselves on their way out of Philly.
Heading into training camp with a heavily expanded roster and having to slowly whittle down to 53 by the start of the season means this is prime time for cuts, and especially for surprising ones. Even familiar faces and fan favorites can be casualties of training camp.
Vets that the Eagles cut will likely find a job elsewhere before the season starts, as this roster is absolutely loaded with talent, but they’ll have to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be Eagles any longer.
Here’s a look at five vets Philly fans can expect to say goodbye to in the coming weeks.
Trey Sermon, Running Back
Let’s start things off with what might be the easiest pick. The Eagles claimed Trey Sermon off of waivers last year when the running back room was very thin. It was a modest 3-year contract without a ton of guaranteed money, and it was structured in such a way that we already won’t incur any dead cap penalties if Sermon is released.
Sermon was active in only two games last season, and he had just 2 carries. He had more inactive games (18: 15 regular season, 3 playoffs) than he had total snaps played (12: 8 offensive, 4 special teams).
If he couldn’t even make the active roster last year, his chances are slimmer this year. Miles Sanders may be gone, but replacing him with D’Andre Swift and Rashaad Penny mean Sermon’s upside is to be the RB5 (behind those two, Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell).
An RB5 who doesn’t even play special teams is an absolute waste of a roster spot, and even more so when he’s getting paid over $1 million.
Sermon probably didn’t play enough to earn himself a ton of fans in Philly, but any he did can expect to be disappointed with a release.
Josiah Scott, Cornerback
Unlike Sermon, Josiah Scott did get a chance to make an impact during last year’s Super Bowl run, and on the surface it looked like that impact was a positive one (2 interceptions, 8 pass defenses).
Things weren’t nearly as good as they may have seemed though, with Scott allowing a 68.8% completion percentage and 103.5 passer rating on the 32 targets he faced. For context, those marks would’ve ranked No. 2 (completion percentage) and No. 3 (passer rating) among all qualifying quarterbacks in 2022.
Scott plays in an important role, backing up Avonte Maddox in the slot, but there’s a reason the Eagles are working to shore up that position.
We moved Zech McPherson to the slot in OTAs and drafted a safety in Sydney Brown who is capable of playing in the slot as well.
The writing on the wall for Scott is clear, and unless he has somehow completely transformed his game over the last few months then he’ll be looking to find a new home for the 2023 season.
Ian Book, Quarterback
If Trey Sermon was the easiest pick, Ian Book isn’t far behind.
The Eagles are probably going to carry three quarterbacks, like we did last year. One of them will probably be a legit backup for Jalen Hurts, like Gardner Minshew was last year. And one of them will probably be a young prospect, like Ian Book was last year.
Only this year instead of Gardner MInshew, it’s Marcus Mariota backing up Hurts. Mariota obviously checks a lot of the boxes you want to see in terms of challenging defenses with his legs in a way that makes it easy to adapt the gameplan if we’re forced to go into any games without Hurts.
But has Book done enough to earn the ‘Ian Book role’ at QB3?
We obviously haven’t had a chance to see it in live game action, but it’s not a good sign that the Eagles thought it was worth spending a sixth-round pick on Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee.
Sure, it’s just a sixth-round pick, but when you’re trying to maintain your status as a top contender in the NFL, you’re not just wasting draft picks on players you don’t think are going to make your final roster – especially in the sixth round.
I’m resisting the urge to make all the easy puns on closed books or new chapters, but it’s pretty hard to project Book to make the final 53 at this point.
K’Von Wallace, Safety
K’Von Wallace is being floated around as a surprise cut, but at this point that’s such a common take that I won’t tell you it’s a surprise.
But whether it’s a surprise or not, it makes a lot of sense.
Starting a couple games a year is a pretty decent result for a former 4th-round pick, but his starting is more a testament to the Eagles’ lack of options than to anything Wallace has done.
He was bad as a rookie, earning a 51.7 overall grade from Pro Football Focus in 2020. A 56.1 in 2021 showed minimal progress, and a 58.4 in 2022 should really be the final straw.
I know PFF isn’t the be-all and end-all of player evaluation, but Philly’s offseason moves also seem to suggest that Eagles coaches didn’t grade him out especially well either.
Drafting Sydney Brown and signing Terrell Edmunds shored up the position, and Reed Blankenship showed a heck of a lot more promise than we’ve ever seen from Wallace at the position last year.
Earlier in his career, especially when the Eagles were very thin in the defensive backfield, it made sense to hold out hope on Wallace blooming into a viable option at safety. But that just hasn’t happened, and it’s not time to hold our breath any longer.
Greg Ward, Wide Receiver
This one hurt after he won over many fans with his promising 2020 season, but it’s looking more and more like Greg Ward is going to be an odd man out after disappearing for the last two years.
When you go from catching 6 touchdowns one year to only catching 7 total passes the following season, it’s clear something has changed. And that change started with a surge of depth in the Eagles’ wide receiver room. It’s harder to compete for looks with DeVonta Smith than with Travis Fulgham or Jalen Reagor.
After disappearing in 2021 then spending all of 2022 on the injured reserve and practice squad, it’s hard to see Ward working his way back to the active roster. And with a million-dollar contract it’s hard to justify keeping the 28-year-old around on the practice squad, even if he’s a good locker room presence.
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