Hassan Ridgeway returns to a Eagles team stacked at defensive tackle

Defensive tackle Hassan Ridgeway re-signed with the Eagles on March 16. But before he even had a chance to raise a glass to toast his new one-year deal, the team went out on the free-agent market and swooped up another interior lineman, Javon Hargrave.

The addition of Hargrave, who played 680 snaps for the Steelers last season, could impact Ridgeway’s workload if all four of the Eagles’ interior linemen, including Fletcher Cox and Malik Jackson, stay healthy.

But that’s a big if given the way the bodies have been dropping at defensive tackle for the Eagles the last couple of years.

Ridgeway was one of those falling bodies last season. He suffered a high-ankle sprain in the Eagles’ Week 7 loss to the Dallas Cowboys and missed the rest of the season.

Earlier injuries to Jackson (season-ending foot fracture in Week 1) and Tim Jernigan (foot injury in Week 2, missed six games) enabled the 25-year-old to play 252 snaps before he got hurt.

The 6-3, 305-pounder played pretty well. He’s a solid interior run-defender with decent pass-rush skills. He had two sacks in his last three games.

“I feel like when I was out there I was able to show what I was capable of doing," Ridgeway said Wednesday, on a conference call with reporters. “I was disappointed by the injury, but not disappointed by how I played."

Ridgeway didn’t expect the injury to be season-ending. A high-ankle sprain usually is a four- to six-week injury. But with the Eagles already missing Jackson and Jernigan, they needed reinforcements.

They quickly put Ridgeway on injured reserve and signed Anthony Rush and Albert Huggins off the Oakland Raiders’ and Houston Texans’ practice squads.

“Doctors and all them, they know more about it than I do,” Ridgeway said. "I just do what they tell me to do and continue on.

“I’ve been healthy for a while. I’ve just been working out and making sure I stay in shape."

That’s not as easy as it usually is this time of year for NFL players. All of the league’s practice facilities are shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic. So are public gyms in many states.

“A lot of the gyms around me are closed down," Ridgeway said. “So most of the stuff I’m doing, I have equipment and different things at the house. Doing my cardio. Doing my workouts and lifts and everything that I can do here. Trying to make the best of a difficult situation."

Ridgeway could have tested the free-agent market, but he preferred to remain with the Eagles for at least one more year.

“Based on the year that I had and the people I was around [with the Eagles], I felt the best situation for me to be in was to go back. I like the way the team was going. I like the people here, and what I was able to do."

He said even with the addition of Hargrave, he expects his role to be not all that much different than last year. While he doesn’t expect to get as many snaps as Cox, Jackson or Hargrave, he expects to get a regular workload as part of a four-man interior line rotation.

“Everybody usually is going to get a chance to go out there and perform and show what they can do," Ridgeway said. “Obviously, some people are going to play a little bit more than others. But everybody knows what their job is on defense."

With Cox, Hargrave, Ridgeway and a healthy Jackson, the Eagles will enter the 2020 season with one of the best interior-line rotations in the NFL, which will help take pressure off some of the other areas of the defense.

“This interior [group] is one of the best that’s out there,” Ridgeway said. “If everybody can stay healthy, we’ve got a lot of talented people in the same room. There’s going to be a lot of competition."