Eagles are cautious with Carson Wentz injury, and Doug Pederson says QB ‘will be ready to go’ Sept. 13
Wentz didn't practice Tuesday, but in a normal year he wouldn't work much this week anyway.
Carson Wentz sat out practice Tuesday with what the Eagles have termed a minor soft-tissue injury, but coach Doug Pederson said that in a normal season, Wentz wouldn’t be working much this week anyway. This would be the week of the traditional final preseason game against the Jets, a last chance for the bottom half of the roster to shine before rosters shrink to 53 by 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Obviously, what Carson is working through right now is nothing major. It’s minor. It’s day-to-day,” Pederson said. “This is actually a good time ... to rest. As you know, if we played a game on Thursday, a preseason game, he wouldn’t play this week anyway. All the backups would go.
“This is really a good time for him ... for the majority of our starters, to kind of rest and prepare themselves for next week. I have no issues of where Carson is, where he’s headed. He’ll be ready to go.”
Wentz stood with the other quarterbacks during the opening minutes of practice, wearing a bucket hat.
Otherwise on the injury front, rookie wide receiver Quez Watkins (upper-body injury) returned to practice, as did tight end Dallas Goedert (thumb). Goedert sat out Sunday’s scrimmage. First-round rookie wide receiver Jalen Reagor watched practice; Reagor is expected to miss about four weeks with a shoulder injury suffered during Sunday’s scrimmage.
The roar of the crowd?
Eagles rookie receiver John Hightower said the team even held “pregame festivities” before Sunday’s scrimmage at the Linc, to try to simulate the feel of a real game. In some ways, it worked, he said.
Dressing at the stadium, walking onto the field, “It definitely felt real,” Hightower said.
Did the piped-in crowd noise help?
“If you were to, like, close your eyes and just listen to the noise, you would think there’s fans in the stadium,” Hightower said. “But being out there and seeing that there’s no fans, in the back of your head, you know it’s fake.”
Hightower, a fifth-round pick from Boise State, grew up in Maryland near FedEx Field, where he presumably will make his NFL debut Sept. 13, against Washington. He said he could have walked to the stadium from his family home in about seven minutes. Family members were big Washington fans, especially one grandfather, but Hightower was not, he said.
“Hoping that all my family and everybody can be there” for the opener, he said.