Miles Sanders injury diagnosis a good and bad news scenario for Eagles

Don’t be surprised if you look up and the narrative asks questions about whether or not Philadelphia Eagles running back Miles Sanders is fragile. For now, that might be another story for another day as the more immediate news about his latest injury is more pressing, but here’s why that statement is valid.

As we move through the 2021-2022 regular season, we’ve daydreamed about thoughts we’ve had that cover a wide range of emotions and significant occurrences. There was the time Duce Staley and Doug Pederson told us that the man we affectionately refer to as ‘Boobie’ was ready for the ‘full load’. That was just months after we watched him limp off of the field in the 2019 season finale versus the New York Giants with an injury.

We’ve also watched him miss Week 8 through Week 10 after a Week 7 ankle injury in Philadephia’s game versus the Las Vegas Raiders forced him to miss all but 12 snaps.

Since then, leading up to Week 16’s game versus the Giants, he sat out of a full week of practices with a quad injury. This came after he left Week 13’s game versus the New York Jets after aggravating the aforementioned ankle.

Most recently, he left the field early again in Week 16 following a hand injury, and once we saw him re-appear on the sideline in street clothes wearing a soft cast, we’ve been waiting on a diagnosis. It came on the following Monday thanks to head coach Nick Sirianni.

Throw Miles Sanders’ diagnosis in the category of good news/bad news scenarios.

According to Sirianni, there’s both good and bad news to report. Miles Sanders has indeed suffered a broken bone in his hand. The bad news is he will miss Philadelphia’s next game versus the Washington Football Team. The good news is he won’t go on the team’s injured reserve.

Following this next game, the Eagles will re-evaluate his status. Jordan Howard‘s MRI didn’t reveal major damage with what’s been described as a stinger. He should be ready to go come Sunday. If he isn’t, that means the running back duties will be shouldered by Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell.

Oh well. The running back position isn’t referred to as the NFL’s most punishing job for no reason. Unfortunately, seeing as how Miles is five-foot-eleven, 211 pounds, and is asked to get beaten up constantly in the running game, one has to ask if we should expect him to play a full season again.

He hasn’t done so since his rookie season, and that was when he was actually the backup to Jordan Howard.