Five Surprises From Eagles On Cutdown Day

Just because they are here today, doesn’t mean they will be here tomorrow. The Eagles set their 53-man roster on Tuesday at the 4 p.m. deadline. Well, at least their first rendition of the 53-man roster.

Surprises? There were a few. There might even be another one or two coming before the week ends.

“I would say we’re not done here,” said general manager Howe Roseman Tuesday after the roster was submitted to the league. “We’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours. …we got a lot of (draft) picks here and we’re happy to use those picks in the draft, but I think for us, the early part of the season, September, we have to see at we have.

“If we need something, I’ll do whatever I can to help this football team, be aggressive, and (owner) Jeffrey (Lurie) gives me that opportunity to do that. I don’t think that we’re done. This is a work in progress.”

Here are some surprises:

Offensive line: The Eagles found a way to keep both their rookie tackles, Myles Hinton and Cameron Williams. They kept 11: the starting five plus reserves Drew Kendall, Fred Johnson, Brett Toth, Matt Pryor, Trevor Keegan, and Williams.

To keep Hinton, the Eagles put him on injured reserve with a designation to return after he serves his minimum four games on IR. Williams is on the 53.

“When you look at what we’re trying to do here, we look at it and say, ‘Hey, if we let this guy go, are we gonna have to go in the draft next year and draft someone in the third round, the fourth round, the fifth round to replace them?’” Sometimes that doesn’t work out perfectly.

“It’s really part of the strategy that we’re trying to do here, and not try to hurt the team in the short term, but also understand if these guys can help us down the road and save us a really high draft pick, man, that’s incredible value. Obviously, (Williams) has a long way to go to do that … but he did a great job of showing us the ability that he can have.”

Eagles Keep 6 Defensive Tackles