Philadelphia Eagles possibly still in play for Yannick Ngakoue, per league source

It appears the Philadelphia Eagles are still in play for Ngakoue’s services.

Believe it or not, even after the reacquisition of long-time Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Vinny Curry, there are quite a few fans, members of the media and football pundits that aren’t totally sold on this group of edge rushers. Let’s take some inventory.

Brandon Graham is the best of the bunch. He’s also the oldest and, in all likelihood, entering his final season as a member of this team. The second man on the depth chart is the other former-first round selection playing the same position, Derek Barnett. Here’s his issue. More often than not, he’s entered camp injured, and even though things were supposed to be different this go around, it isn’t.

Then, there’s the other thing. Every year is supposed to be his breakout season, and it never comes.

Outside of Curry, the other guys behind those two are Josh Sweat, who has shown promise, Shareef Miller, who hasn’t, Genard Avery, Joe Ostman, and the rookie, Casey Toohill. Much was made during the offseason about the possibility of Philly adding another pass rusher by way of some splash signing or trade, but as time went on, those theories vanished, until now.

A respected NFL Insider, one Philadelphia Eagles aren’t the biggest fan of, made a huge statement recently.

You remember Michael Lombardi, don’t you? These days, he’s best remembered by ‘Birds’ fans as being the guy that said Doug Pederson was a horrible coaching hire and, then, getting his hind parts handed to him by Jason Kelce in what will forever be remembered as the famous speech in the history of victory parades.

Well, he’s still around. As many of you know, he’s a weekly guest on 94 WIP-FM’s Morning Show with Angelo Cataldi, and recently, he tweeted that there several NFL sources were reporting the Jacksonville Jaguars were close to putting the finishing touches on a trade that would send Yannick Ngakoue to another franchise.

That was August 19th. Days later, there’s no trade to talk about, but Lombardi spoke with Cataldi on Friday and appears to be doubling down on his statement.

"This morning I got a text from a GM saying that (Jaguars general manager) David Caldwell was very upset with my tweet. He has since said that nothing is imminent, which is a complete lie. (Ngakoue has) been involved in trade talks, numerously. He has to be! If (Caldwell is) doing his job, the guy’s not gonna play for him… He’s got to make a trade."

Lombardi completed his thought by mentioning that he believes the Eagles could be involved and Ngakoue is ‘a much, much better option than (Jadeveon) Clowney’. We know Ngakoue is interested. Earlier this offseason, he posted pictures of himself on his Instagram story among other things.

The question is, with the Eagles cap constraints in 2021 and with all of the draft picks that they’ve invested into the defensive end position during Doug Pederson’s tenure (and with the reacquisition of Curry), one has to ask whether or not a deal even makes sense? We’ll have to wait and see what happens or if anything happens at all.