Eagles news: Duce Staley discusses Wendell Smallwood’s injury
Recently, Eagles running backs coach Duce Staley sat down with the Philadelphia media to discuss Wendell Smallwood among other things.
Perhaps one of the coolest things over the last 20 years was listening to the “Duce” chant every time former Philadelphia Eagles running back Duce Staley took a handoff from Donovan McNabb, first at Veterans Stadium and, eventually, at Lincoln Financial Field. Now, Staley paces the sidelines as the team’s running backs coach. It’s his job to make sure the team gets everything they should from LeGarrette Blount, Wendell Smallwood and company.
Unfortunately, the former has struggled, and the latter hasn’t seen the field for either preseason game. Corey Clement is doing all that he can to make the roster, and it’s becoming obvious that the Eagles are fortunate to have Darren Sproles because it doesn’t appear they’ll get too much from Donnel Pumphrey in act one of his NFL career. In Smallwood’s case, there were questions as to whether or not he was good enough to make this Eagles team.
Staley’s got his plate full.
It’s now been over two weeks since Smallwood’s practiced. He’s been bothered by a hamstring injury. Also, no one’s forgotten he missed the final three games of the 2016 season because of an MCL sprain. Now, the third preseason game is set to take place against the Miami Dolphins. We don’t know anything knew about Smallwood or his injury. Duce Staley sat down with some of the Philadelphia media.
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Here’s what he had to say:
"It’s frustrating. You want to be out there on the field. You want to go out there and show guys what you can do — the front office, along with your teammates. But like I said, throughout OTAs and prior to the injury, Wendell was having the best camp, in my opinion….Any time you miss is valuable time in preseason, but Wendell understands what’s going on, and hopefully he’ll be back soon."
Here’s what we believe at Inside The Iggles. Smallwood won’t be in the lineup for the Dolphins game either. There was an old saying that you can’t lose your job due to injury. We all know that’s not true. Smallwood’s chances of making the roster may not be as certain as we once believed.