Philadelphia Eagles make changes to their medical staff again

The Philadelphia Eagles have made changes to their medical staff for the third year in a row. Might this be the charm?

At this point, as far as the injuries are concerned, you have to be asking yourself what’s going on with this Philadelphia Eagles team. In 2017, they were bitten by the bug both early (Darren Sproles) and often (Jason Peters, Carson Wentz, Jordan Howard, and Mack Hollins), but Philly still wound up with the desired result, A Vince Lombardi Trophy.

In 2018, a familiar script unfolded as Carson Wentz was lost because of an injury for the second straight season, and Nick Foles was thrust into duty. After missing the first two games of the campaign, Wentz played in 11, many of them literally with a broken back before having his injury diagnosed by the medical staff.

He was shut down, but a 5-7 team that was taken to the playoffs by Nick Foles was unable to deliver a second-consecutive world title.

Hopes were high in 2019. Philly entered the regular season fairly healthy. The hope was this would be the year that the young talent would step up, the aging veterans would be able to give them 16 games or more of their best work, and the guys who were already hurt would return midseason to help the ‘Birds’ make a serious run that took them all the way to Miami Gardens.

Then, Sproles got hurt. So did Malik Jackson, Ronald Darby, DeSean Jackson, Jordan Howard, Lane Johnson, Nelson Agholor, and Alshon Jeffery. Once again, injuries ravaged an Eagles team and forced fans to ask what might have been.

Oh, and it’s also important to mention that, during that stretch, the ‘Birds’ made changes to their medical staff prior to 2018, 2019, and the 2020 seasons. Sure, an aging roster probably contributes to the constant injuries, but there’s also no excuse for the DeSean Jackson debacle. Had he simply had an operation early, he may have been available for the latter part of the season. Instead, there was procrastination, and well, no one really needs a reminder about how that turned out.

With that being said, change is again coming. According to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane, Philly won’t be renewing the expired contracts of Shaun Huls, their director of high performance, and Shireen Mansoori, their director of rehabilitation. Les Bowen also shared some thoughts of his own on Twitter as he stated the following:

"Howie Roseman talked after the season about how chief medical officer Dr. Arsh Dhanota was evaluating the operation. I think there could be changes in sports science, physical therapy and athletic training."

The Eagles have not released a statement at the time of this story being published.

All of this follows Chris Peduzzi’s decision to step down in 2018 after 19 years with the team. In subsequent moves, Philly decided not to retain head physician Peter DeLuca and Gary Dorshimer, their head internist. Like Peduzzi, both had spent nearly two decades with the organization. As mentioned earlier, that didn’t stop the injury issues.

Philly made more changes prior to 2019’s season. They parted ways with their new head team physician and head internist Stephen A. Stache after just one season. The Eagles also added Arsh Dhanota as their chief medical officer in June. We’ll have to wait and see who joins him in the medical department in the coming weeks.