PHILADELPHIA — Wide receiver A.J. Brown missed every practice this week with a nagging hamstring injury, and now the Eagles officially ruled him out for Sunday’s rematch against the division rival New York Giants, who trampled the Birds earlier this month in North Jersey.
Center Cam Jurgens, who exited last week’s victory over the Vikings with a knee injury, will also miss Sunday’s game at Lincoln Financial Field.
Coach Nick Sirianni had said Friday that missing practice didn’t necessarily mean Brown would be unavailable gameday.
“Everybody has different scenarios with that,” Sirianni said. “I think a lot of our guys (could play without practicing), just because of how locked in we are to the details and our guys are locked into the details — the game plan study, the way they go about walkthrough, the way they go about meetings. I definitely think that he’s a guy that could.”
In other words, the Eagles rested Brown all week in the hopes his hamstring would improve enough for him to play against New York. It didn’t.
If there was any way they thought the All-Pro wideout could be on the field this weekend, he would be. But it’s still early in the season and the Birds have a bye following Sunday’s game, so the team had a decision to weigh: Try to play Brown and then rest him vs. give him extra rest to prepare for the second half.
Combined with the Birds’ Week 9 bye, Brown gets three weeks on the shelf to recover. Plus, the Giants are 2-5 and in last place in the NFC East, so why not let Brown rest up?
Brown’s absence opens up the possibility of undrafted rookie receiver Darius Cooper (questionable), who made the starting squad after an impressive summer, returning to the field again. Cooper, who suffered a shoulder injury in Week 3 against the Rams, was recently activated from IR.
By the way, defensive end Brandon Graham won’t play either. This isn’t a surprise. Considering he’s just out of retirement, he still needs to work his way back into playing shape.
Tight ends Dallas Goedert and Grant Calcaterra are expected to play.
Here’s the full injury news from Friday. First, for gameday:
OUT: CB Jakorian Bennett (pectoral), WR Brown (hamstring), DE Brandon Graham (not injury related), CB Adoree’ Jackson (concussion), C Cam Jurgens (knee), OLB Azeez Ojulari (hamstring)
QUESTIONABLE – WR Darius Cooper (shoulder)
And from Friday’s practice:
DNP – WR Brown (hamstring), CB Adoree’ Jackson (concussion), C Cam Jurgens (knee), OLB Azeez Ojulari (hamstring).
FULL – CB Jakorian Bennett (pectoral), TE Grant Calcaterra (oblique), WR Cooper (shoulder), G Landon Dickerson (ankle/back), TE Dallas Goedert (calf), DE Brandon Graham (not injury related), DT Moro Ojomo (shoulder), LB Jeremiah Trotter (ankle).
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Follow Christiaan DeFranco on X at @the_defranc.
