Eagles can’t afford JJ Arcega-Whiteside to become next Nelson Agholor

It’s only been one season, but the Philadelphia Eagles better hope JJ Arcega-Whiteside doesn’t become the next Nelson Agholor in the passing game after his lack of impact as a rookie.

Back in April, one of the main reasons behind the decision of the Philadelphia Eagles using a second-round pick on JJ Arcega-Whiteside was due to the uncertainty of Nelson Agholor beyond the 2019 season since the wideout was set to become a free agent.

Despite Agholor’s NFL career getting off to a rough start after only catching 59 passes for 648 yards with three touchdowns in 28 games during his first two seasons in the league, things did eventually turn around for the USC product the following two years.

From 2017-18, Agholor took advantage of an improved offense with the Eagles along with taking on a reduced role by hauling in 126 catches for 1,504 yards to go along with 12 touchdowns, making it seem like the future in Philadelphia was finally bright for the wideout.

But unfortunately, Agholor has shown once again just how unreliable he can be in the passing game when the Eagles have needed him the most by only catching 39 passes for 363 yards to go along with three touchdowns in 11 games.

Take all of this into consideration with the numerous dropped passes that should have been easy catches, and it’s easy to understand the frustration that has come into light once again for Agholor throughout the 2019 season.

With that being said, Agholor has unfortunately been added to the long list of injuries that Philadelphia has been dealing with this year, as his knee has been bothering him for a few months now, and forced him to miss the last two contests.

Due to Agholor’s recent absence along with the injuries surrounding Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson, the last few games seemed like the perfect opportunity for Arcega-Whitside to take on a larger role on offense for the Eagles.

In fact, when looking at how there were technically only three active receivers for Philadelphia’s most recent game against the Washington Redskins, this made it seem like Arcega-Whiteside would be taking on a much heavier workload.

As Eagles fans would learn, this was far from the case after the rookie wideout failed to haul in a single catch, and was only targeted two times by Carson Wentz.

This may not seem like the biggest deal in the world, but the fact that Philadelphia’s wide receiver problems have been taking place all year, and Arcega-Whiteside only caught six passes in the previous four games prior to Week 15 shows how disappointing the rookie has been.

The good news for the Eagles is one season won’t define what kind of NFL career Arcega-Whiteside is going to have since he has plenty of time to turn things around, but also the situation is all too familiar to the early years of Agholor’s career.

For the sake of Philadelphia’s offense, here’s to hoping Arcega-Whiteside does find a way to turn things around, because if he does become the next Agholor in this offense, it’s going to become another wasted opportunity for the Eagles on offense.