Philadelphia Eagles: Bad news in reference to both starting tackles?

This Philadelphia Eagles team doesn’t appear to be a sturdy bunch, do they?

If you’re a Philadelphia Eagles fan and you read Inside The Iggles often, you’ve probably read the following statement before. Sometimes, it feels like all of these injuries that this team has had to deal with over the past few seasons is some sort of bad karma for what went on in the ‘Body Bag Game’.

For all of you youngsters, that was a Monday Night Football game played back on November 12th of 1990. Then-head coach and mighty warlord Buddy Ryan declared that the Washington Football Team would have to be carried off in ‘body bags’.

Nine players were, indeed, carted off. A running back, future-Eagle, Brian Mitchell, had to come in and play quarterback after every available signal-caller Washington had was ruled out. Fast forward a few weeks, and Washington returned to Veterans Stadium in the NFC Playoffs to hand the ‘Birds’ a thorough beating. Fast forward almost 30 years, and every day we’re talking about upper-body and lower-body injuries.

Poor Sidney Jones. At the time of this story being published, we haven’t seen him since last Tuesday.

Both starting tackles for this Philadelphia Eagles team seem to be dealing with physical injury.

Just two months ago, we were talking about how great this offensive line could be and how the one question mark was Andre Dillard. Not too long after that, we were talking about how Dillard had to work out and, frankly, we believed that he would.

Then, Brandon Brooks got hurt, Jason Peters returned, and we were nervous about depth. fast forward to the present. We’ve learned some of these reserves are pretty doggone good. The problem now is the starters. Once the ‘Birds’ hit the grass, Peters was dealing with something, but he returned. He’d just need to check in and out of the lineup a few times.

Sunday, Lane Johnson missed practice. He’s dealing with a lower-body injury and is ‘day-to-day’. Oh, wait. There’s more. Andre Dillard left practice on Sunday too. He spent some time with a trainer on the sideline before heading into the medical tent. He’d then head into the building. He wouldn’t return.

So far and at the time of this story being published, there’s been no word as to the severity of what he’s dealing with. We’ll probably be told that he’s got an upper-body or lower-body injury and that he’s ‘day-to-day’, but regardless of the question marks about his mental and physical readiness that we’ve asked from time to time, one thing is certain. Without him, this team has two immediate options.

They can put Jordan Mailata in his place (We don’t like that one. He’s looked horrendous at times during camp), or they can move Jason Peters over to left tackle and let Matt Pryor take over at guard (that one’s a little better idea, but it’s evident that Peters is finally starting to look like a 38-year-old man playing a young man’s game. He’s better than any other 38-year-old would be, but he’s 38-years-old nonetheless.