It was quite a scare experienced by the Eagles and their fans yesterday when Eagles young wideout Jeremy Maclin lay on the ground grabbing his knee in pain as head coach Andy Reid stood over him. There was a hush which went over the practice field.
All anybody could think was season-ending injury. Thankfully that didn’t turn out to be the case.
Reid has made it a point to not overreact to injuries because they’re part of the game and the team has to find a way to overcome them rather than dwelling on them. Still, he definitely reacted to Maclin grabbing his knee.
He along with all Eagles fans know that one of the strengths of this football team are Maclin, DeSean Jackson, Jason Avant and the rest of the team’s wide receivers.
They’re already missing Jackson, who has been out of action for a number of days with back spasms. The hearts of the fans on site skipped a beat when Jackson went down earlier in the training camp. Of course there was relief when the injury was diagnosed as not being serious.
It looks like Maclin will be fine.
“Hyperextended my knee a little bit,” he said. “Should be all right, though.”
“It is [a relief],” he said. “Nobody wants to experience anything that’s season-ending or anything like that.
“I just kinda got stuck in the ground, man, my leg just kinda buckled on me a little bit.”
Avant has been impressive with Jackson down. He and Kevin Kolb have been like clockwork in hooking up for completions but you don’t see him getting down field like Jackson did. If Avant started with Jackson out, it would completely change the Eagles offense.
I think they could win games with Avant in there for Jackson but they wouldn’t be nearly as explosive. Right now rookie Riley Cooper seems to be the guy backing up Maclin. It would be a lot to ask a rookie to step in for somebody as talented as Maclin but Cooper continues to put in outstanding practices.
The big guy not only catches the ball and pushes defenders around like a big receiver should, he gets deep on the secondary for bombs every other day. He was timed at 4.5 in the forty-yard dash, but he consistently gets deep against members of our secondary.
Veteran Hank Baskett is also on the roster and capable to stepping in and making plays. Recent acquisition Kelley Washington has shown he can make plays in the west coast offense.
The Eagles backups are capable of contributing if and when they get the chance but the Eagles won’t be the same team if either Jackson or Maclin gets injured for an extended period of time.
Sorry, but I’m still not a fan of this pass-happy offense. I prefer a more balanced attack. Guess I’m just an old geezer.
Not too many teams are balanced these days. We might be surprised this year though.
I agree Drummer… How many rushing yards to do you think Mccoy will have this year? if he reaches over 1,000 I would be very surprised.
Well, I’m not saying they should be completely balanced. Obviously, the defenses have not caught up to the relatively new pass-heavy offenses. However, I would like to see a “more balanced” attack. We pass more than most teams.
VRicchini, I actually think McCoy will come close to 1,000. It’s been Andy Reid’s tendency to run a bit more whenever McNabb wasn’t playing QB. Hopefully, that trend will continue. If we don’t have a respectable run game, Kolb’s job will be made that much more difficult. We’ll see.