Philadelphia Eagles on schedule to tackle Buccaneers at full strength

The Philadelphia Eagles entered Week 18 of the 2021-2022 regular season with a plan that was about as simple and as can be expected by an NFL team gearing up for a regular-season finale. Coaches often keep their cards close to the vest, but anyone watching had a bead on what the Birds would be doing versus the hated Dallas Cowboys.

Rest some guys. Try and get some of their wounded healthy so they’d be back for the playoffs, and most importantly, don’t get anyone else hurt.

That led to an outcome that you may not see for a while, a blowout loss by the Birds at the hands of Dallas that didn’t cause any hurt feelings in the fan base.

The Eagles, as they did in last year’s finale, decided that strategy was more important than winning. When we began 2021’s calendar year, the Birds intentionally dropped one to another rival, the Washington Football Team. The goal was to improve draft positioning. 370 days later, the focus was something else.

This time around, they’re getting ready for the postseason. Their plan appears to be working.

The Philadelphia Eagles are nearing full strength ahead of their game versus the Buccaneers.

Jalen Hurts and the most talked about ankle in the City of Brotherly Love are ready to go. That’s good! That’s what we were waiting for. Word has it that the Birds should have their full stable of running backs for the first time in weeks. Miles Sanders believes he should be ready.

That’s no surprise though. Even when we haven’t gotten any official word from the Philadelphia Eagles, Miles Sanders normally says he’s ready to go.

Philly also announced that they were removing 11 players they had on their Reserve/COVID-19 list on the Monday leading up to the Wild Card Round. This after they added 12 members of the active roster on January 3rd and after making the announcement ahead of the finale that Jason Kelce had been activated to the active roster.

On Wednesday, we were given the first injury report of the week.

As the report mentions, Wednesday’s practice was a walkthrough, but you have to like where things are headed. The goal was to get this team healthy, and kudos to the medical team. That’s what the Birds have done.

The status report won’t be released until Friday. The final inactives report will be released 90 minutes before kickoff on Sunday, but so far, so good. This has to be seen as encouraging as the Philadelphia Eagles prepare for their rematch with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.