Philadelphia Eagles debate table: Where on Earth is Shelton Gibson?

It’s been three games, and the Philadelphia Eagles have had several issues at the wide receiver position. Where has Shelton Gibson been this entire time?

Let’s make long stories as short as possible. Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Shelton Gibson is either going to bloom late, or we were fooled by some stellar play in the preseason yet again. Let’s do a roll call.

Five wide receivers sit on the Eagles current roster, Nelson Agholor, Kamar Aiken, Jordan Matthews, Alshon Jeffery and Shelton Gibson. We’ve racked our brains about what to do while the ‘Birds’ have shuffled the deck in their receiving corps over and over again.

At times, they’ve seemed desperate out there, losing Mike Wallace after he fractured his fibula and seeing guys like Markus Wheaton a shot, but it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The second-year guys were supposed to step up and pay huge dividends after a Super Bowl-winning season.

It just didn’t work that way.

Let’s do some digging.

Mack Hollins found his way to the team’s IR (injured reserve). Donnel Pumphrey got cut, and the speedster from West Virginia, Shelton Gibson is beginning to look more and more like he just won’t cut it in the NFL. Again, Philly’s seemed clueless at times about how to fix their woes on the outside, and Gibson couldn’t even get into the game then.

So far, through three games, he’s seen the field for 40 offensive snaps. To put that in perspective look at it this way. Jordan Matthews was just added back to the roster, and in his first game back with Philly, he played 30 offensive snaps. Matthews was targeted twice and made two catches for 21 yards.

Gibson, who’s supposed to be the speedster, only played on one offensive snap versus the Indianapolis Colts, and for the season, he has no catches. Nick Foles and Carson Wentz don’t even look in his direction when he’s on the field.

Eagles head coach Doug Pederson discussed Gibson a little on the Monday leading up to Philly’s Week 4 contest versus the Tennessee Titans.

Here’s a quote:

"Right now, we’re just without getting into a lot of scheme stuff, we just felt better yesterday with some of our 12 personnel, some of our 13 personnel. Kept them in base defense. They did jump into nickel a little bit because then we were in our 12 and 13 personnel being able to run the football….So just the way the game kind of unfolded just a little bit. Shelton is a young player that’s continuing to grow and get better with the offense. We had a package of plays for him yesterday; just didn’t get to him."

Gibson seems to be pretty understanding. Here’s what he had to say about everything:

"Coaches know exactly what they’re doing with the game plan and I just let them do that. I just go out there and practice as hard as I can. It’s just that next man up and right now I’m not the next man up. Whenever I am, I’m going to give them all I got."

In all honesty, it doesn’t appear as though he’ll get more opportunities if Alshon Jeffery is set to return to the playing field, but we’ll all have to wait and see what happens.