You never want to lose a player like Dallas Goedert but the Philadelphia Eagles can skip the uncertainty and look to last season for the template.
The Eagles lost their star tight end for five games (Weeks 11 through 15) with a broken glenoid bone in his shoulder during what was an NFC championship season a year ago and not only persevered, they finished 5-0 without one of the big three in their imposing passing game.
This time around it’s a fractured forearm suffered in Sunday’s win over the Dallas Cowboys that will likely put the 29-year-old veteran on the shelf for four to six weeks. The first seven days in that projected rehab is Philadelphia’s bye week meaning that Goedert is expected to miss as little as three games and as many as five.
From a coaching standpoint, it’s about replacing both playing time and productivity when it comes to Goedert.
As the TE1, Goedert is often on the field for over 90 percent of the offensive snaps and is currently the team’s third-leading receiver behind A.J. Broan and DeVonta Smith with 38 receptions for 410 yards and two touchdowns during what has been an NFL-best 8-1 start for Philadelphia.
“You can supplement it sometimes with different personnel groupings as well. We feel like we have some good options,” head coach Nick Sirianni said earlier this week when asked about life without his best tight end.
Rewind to last season and incumbent backup tight ends Jack Stoll and Grant Calcaterra got significantly increased playing time in Goedert’s absence. Stoll, whose strength is blocking, was over 69 percent of the offensive snaps with Goedert out of the lineup and often reached near 80 percent, gaining the trust of quarterback Jalen Hurts during the stretch.
That said, Stoll is limited, albeit steady from a receiving standpoint, catching all seven targets that went his way without Goedert in the lineup but not replicating the explosive ability the TE1 has.
Calcaterra, then a rookie, also got involved more. Before Goedert was injured, Calcaterra topped out at 17 reps and then spiked to a range of 19 all the way up to 39 with the starter out of the lineup. The numbers for Calcaterra as a receiver were four receptions for 41 yards over the five-game span.
The curveball this season is the presence of Albert Okwuegbunam, who once caught 33 passes with the Denver Broncos and has the athleticism to threaten opposing defenses more than Stoll or Calcaterra.
The vast majority of Goedert’s snaps will go to those three players. His target distribution will likely be split between the backup TEs and added traffic to the receivers, most notably Smith and Julio Jones.
The Eagles are predominantly an 11 personnel (three WRs, one TE) team with or without Goedert in the lineup so the most significant change will come with the passing-game distribution from Hurts.
Last season, the uptick in traffic with Goedert out was most noticeable for Quez Watkins, then the WR3 behind Brown and Smith. This year that could be Jones, Olamide Zaccheaus, or perhaps Watkins again, who seems close to returning from a hamstring injury.
Assuming success this season without Goedert because of the 2022 history could be specious, however.
The Eagles played a much easier schedule with Goedert out last season against the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers, Tennessee Titans, New York Giants, and Chicago Bears.
If you project the next five games as his absence that’s the meat of the Philadelphia schedule starting with the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on Nov. 20, followed by Buffalo, San Francisco, Dallas, and Seattle, all potential playoff teams.
“We are obviously not into game planning [for Kansas City in Week 11] yet," Sirianni said. "We did a big review of our game [against Dallas] and then [Tuesday] will be self-scout stuff.
“We’ll work into game plan later in the week where we’ll think more about that. But we know we have options not only with the guys in the room but also guys that are not in the room out of different personnel groupings.”
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