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The DiCecco Daily: Looking At Eagles WR Picture After Johnny Wilson Season-Ending Injury · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome into this edition of The check Odaily.
• 0:13
  Andrew decheco here and tough news for Eagles wide receiver
• 0:17
  Johnny Wilson.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: On Tuesday.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You may remember from the previous podcast he suffered an
• 0:24
  injury to his knee ankle and it occurred on a
• 0:28
  play early in practice during a team period where he
• 0:32
  was rolled up on by guard Brett Toath and it
• 0:36
  was an injury that was significant enough where Toath sensed
• 0:40
  it immediately got off of him. You could see that
• 0:42
  Johnny Wilson, the Eagles second year wide receiver, was sort of.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Writing in pain.
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  Speaker 1: He hobbled off, he couldn't put any weight on his
• 0:51
  left leg, and he went into the trainer's tent.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Shortly thereafter. He was carted off inside.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Didn't look good, and on Thursday we received word that
• 1:04
  Johnny Wilson is done for the season. He will undergo
• 1:07
  season ending surgery to repair injuries.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: To his knee and ankle.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: That is such a tough break because Johnny Wilson was
• 1:15
  really starting to come on emerging in his second season,
• 1:20
  at least in training camp, started off a little bit slow,
• 1:23
  wasn't necessarily playing to his size. But what I've noticed
• 1:27
  he started making some plays in traffic, and then he
• 1:30
  started to use his body on the back shoulder and
• 1:32
  in the preseason game, especially against the Bengals, really reaping
• 1:37
  the benefits of his size and using that. And then
• 1:39
  he only played about eight snaps in the next game
• 1:42
  against the Browns. So he was a player that I
• 1:44
  sort of had as a lock. He does a lot
• 1:47
  for this team. The Eagles like them, they trust him.
• 1:50
  He's established a rapport with Jalen Hurtz, and what I
• 1:55
  wanted to see from Johnny Wilson this training camp was
• 1:57
  more of a step forward as a wide receiver because
• 2:01
  we already know what he can do as a blocker
• 2:04
  and doing the dirty and grimy work that not many
• 2:07
  players are willing to do. In the mold of Zach Pascal,
• 2:11
  Alamide Zikias and those who came before him. Nick Sirianni
• 2:16
  tends to really covet a player who's willing to do that.
• 2:18
  It takes his selfless player, a tough player, and a
• 2:21
  physical player to pull that off. That was going to
• 2:24
  be his role this year, but I thought he offered
• 2:27
  a glimpse of what you could see as a receiver
• 2:29
  and he showed notable signs of development. That's a testament
• 2:31
  to Johnny Wilson, as it is to wide receivers coach
• 2:35
  Aaron moorehead.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: It was a really good story.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Johnny Wilson's a great kid, and this is the tough
• 2:41
  part of sports and you hate to always see that.
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  Speaker 2: But his season is.
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  Speaker 1: Over, and now you have to take a look at
• 2:50
  the other players at that position right now, and you
• 2:53
  have aj Brown, Devonte Smith, Johan Dotson they just traded
• 2:59
  for John Metchi. That trade looks awfully timely right now, then,
• 3:04
  assuming the Eagles keep six wide receivers, and I'm not
• 3:08
  totally I still have my fifty three that I'm trying
• 3:10
  to configure. I have a lot of the pieces in
• 3:13
  some of it are going to be determined based off
• 3:15
  of the game tomorrow. But you have an Isa Smith
• 3:21
  who can return ponce. He's the Eagles second year wide receiver.
• 3:24
  Darius Cooper the undrafted rookie out of Tarlatan State, So
• 3:29
  conceivably both players.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Have a chance to make the team.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Now, that creates an opening, and there was a bit
• 3:36
  of a logjam there in terms of talent. Now, let
• 3:39
  me overview two players that I just mentioned in an
• 3:41
  Isa Smith and Darius Cooper anas. Smith didn't do an
• 3:46
  awful lot in the team drills during the early portion
• 3:49
  of training camp, maybe even most of training camp. Will
• 3:52
  say he did show up in one on ones, particularly
• 3:55
  against Cooper Dejene, where he could really see his short
• 3:57
  area of quickness and ability to separate the top of
• 4:00
  routes in confined space really shine. He had a nice
• 4:04
  touchdown from Jaywhen Hurts on the final day of training
• 4:06
  camp on an out route to the right where Jaywen
• 4:10
  was able to sort of get the ball to an
• 4:13
  Ias while having an awkward release because that's what it
• 4:18
  called for. There was pressure bearing down, an Ias created
• 4:21
  just enough separation from Cooper Degene to pick up the
• 4:24
  reception and then score the touchdown. He's made a handful
• 4:28
  of plays in the team sessions later, and he seemed
• 4:31
  to take advantage of the opportunities where there weren't aj
• 4:35
  Brown or DeVante Smith there, and Anaias got a lot
• 4:38
  of valuable first team reps. Now he also doubles as
• 4:41
  a punt returner, which is important to note because you
• 4:46
  heard what Fick Vanjo had to say. If he had
• 4:48
  it his way, Cooper Degene wouldn't be back there returning punts.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And I believe that.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Because he's so valuable, you should always devote him to
• 4:56
  special occasions in terms of punt return because he's simply
• 5:00
  too valuable to what the Eagles do defensively. So then
• 5:03
  what do you do? Well, there's Avery Williams there. He's
• 5:05
  also listed as a wide receiver, but he's more of
• 5:07
  a specialist. He was signed as a free agent. I
• 5:10
  think an Eye has been a little bit better in
• 5:12
  terms of punt returns, and he was drafted, but the
• 5:15
  Eagles signed Avery Williams and Nick Sirianni seemed intrigued with
• 5:19
  the prospects of getting him involved offensively. Obviously, that hasn't
• 5:23
  manifested quite yet. The Eagles aren't going to show everything
• 5:26
  in a public setting, but those are depending on how
• 5:29
  they feel about Avery Williams. That could affect what they
• 5:32
  do with Anayas Smith. Now the question becomes, is he
• 5:35
  a player that you would fear clearing waivers if you're
• 5:38
  the Eagles. He's The argument for that would be, well,
• 5:41
  he was just drafted last year. Had it decorated career
• 5:44
  at Texas A and M perhaps a team could look
• 5:47
  at it and say a change of scenery, or he's
• 5:49
  a better fit in our offense, or we have more
• 5:51
  of a role for him, and you can make that case.
• 5:54
  On the other hand, he hasn't accomplished an awful lot
• 5:57
  in the NFL, and he hasn't put a lot of
• 5:59
  things on tape from the preseason that would elicit a
• 6:03
  team to.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Invest a waiver claim on him.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And the reality is not a lot of players do
• 6:08
  get claimed off waivers.
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  Speaker 2: I think there's a misconception.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: There that whenever you waive a certain player that maybe
• 6:14
  had a good summer in your eyes, that the another
• 6:16
  team's going to come poking around. It's so difficult for
• 6:20
  a team to look at it and say, we're going
• 6:22
  to get this guy on another team who didn't spend
• 6:25
  training camp with us. He has to now learn our
• 6:27
  system and we don't know when he's going to be
• 6:30
  up to.
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  Speaker 2: Speed and be able to realistically help us.
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  Speaker 1: So those are certain cases that you should be mindful
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  of with final cuts approaching. And then for Darius Cooper,
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  the undrafted wide receiver, I've said this countless times. He
• 6:44
  made a play every day, he was consistent. He mixed
• 6:48
  in some splash plays, which initially put him on the radar,
• 6:51
  and he proved that he belongs. He was a three
• 6:53
  level threat. Has a build similar to AJ Brown or
• 6:56
  Deebo Samuel if you will, and I do believe that
• 6:59
  he has stay power in this league. He can absolutely
• 7:01
  play on Sundays and he's done nothing to hurt his
• 7:08
  case of making the roster. All he's done is shown
• 7:10
  up every day and produced. He's gotten valuable first team
• 7:13
  reps again taking advantage of the numbers shortage at different
• 7:16
  points in training camp. So you have to tip your
• 7:19
  cap to him for showing up every day. That's the
• 7:21
  hard part because there's so many undrafted wide receivers that
• 7:24
  you can point to in every camp that flash, and
• 7:27
  that's what it is.
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  Speaker 2: It's a flash.
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  Speaker 1: Very rarely do you see someone be able to carry
• 7:32
  that over day in and day out. That's the hard part.
• 7:34
  That's the grind. That's the mental grind that a companies
• 7:38
  training camp. And I think that Darius Cooper has proven
• 7:41
  that he's wired for the moment and he's made big
• 7:43
  time plays. I go back to the practice on Wednesday,
• 7:46
  that was the Eagles final training camp practice of the summer.
• 7:49
  Jaywen Hurts throws a pass in traffic and Darius Cooper
• 7:54
  leaps between Quinjon Mitchell and Jahad Campbell to bring it in.
• 7:58
  That's somebody that is confident in what he's doing. The
• 8:01
  quarterback is confident in the receiver and to go up
• 8:05
  there and make that play, that's not a play that
• 8:08
  anybody can make. You have to really attack the football
• 8:11
  and do certain things. There's not a lot of players
• 8:13
  in that position in his position, I should say that
• 8:16
  would be able to come up with that. So those
• 8:18
  are just some of the examples of what Darius Cooper's
• 8:22
  been able to do.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: So he would be my sixth receiver.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: The question becomes the Eagles keep six, and if they
• 8:28
  do keep six, would Annis and Darius Cooper be the
• 8:33
  logical fits there? How does Darius Cooper project down the line?
• 8:37
  Remember Johan Dotson, you know, you don't know what his
• 8:41
  future is going to be like after next season in Philadelphia,
• 8:44
  So Darius Cooper could conceivably give the Eagles a cost
• 8:47
  effective option to kind of step in after a year
• 8:50
  of developing on the active roster if you're worried about
• 8:53
  him getting poached on off waivers.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: So it's an interesting conundrum.
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  Speaker 1: But I say all that to say it was a
• 9:00
  tough day for Eagles wide receiver Johnny Wilson. Tough day
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  for the Philadelphia Eagles as they lose a player who
• 9:07
  would have filled a vital role, and he seemed to
• 9:11
  be really beloved by his wide receivers. They seem to
• 9:13
  really enjoy having them around. Johnny Wilson was just starting
• 9:16
  to come into his own as a pass catcher now
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  after a year of being idle and having to go
• 9:21
  through that surgery. It's a long road ahead for sure.
• 9:24
  But again, I can't emphasize enough Johnny Wilson. It's not
• 9:28
  something that you look at it and say he was
• 9:30
  the wide receiver four, wide receiver five. He had a role,
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  a carved out role, and it's a prominent one doing
• 9:39
  the dirty work, freeing up teammates to do certain things.
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  He put the work in and it's really unfortunate to see.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: But that's the state of the Eagles wide receivers.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: As we go into the final preseason game, I will
• 9:51
  have a podcast for you after the game. I will
• 9:53
  be heading to Met Life for the game and there's
• 9:56
  a number of different players I'll be keeping an eye on,
• 9:58
  including running back Mantra Johnson, tight end e J. Jenkins,
• 10:02
  Darian Canard, rookie Miles Hinton, the tackle on the defensive
• 10:06
  side Byron Young, the defensive tackle Smile Monden Jr. The linebacker,
• 10:12
  safety Tristan McComb, safety Andre Salmon. Of course, the ongoing
• 10:17
  cornerback battle for that second spot, So keep your eyes
• 10:20
  peeled for Jacoreyan Bennett number forty nine, Mac McWilliams number
• 10:23
  twenty two, and Adorri Jackson number eight. There's still plenty
• 10:27
  to glean even though it's the preseason finale. I'll have
• 10:30
  all the updates for you Friday evening from MetLife Stadium.
• 10:34
  This is Andrew Decheco, and I'll catch you on the
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  next one.