The Eagles are healthier than a year ago. Can they stay that way? | Jeff McLane

Carson Wentz took every possible repetition Saturday. The Eagles quarterback did so without the clunky knee brace he wore a year ago this time. He threw passes to Alshon Jeffery during full team drills. And he even stayed after practice to work on his deep throws to DeSean Jackson.

What a difference a year makes.

The restrictions Wentz faced last training camp following knee surgery would prove to foreshadow an Eagles season that was besieged by injury – the many that occurred in 2017 and carried over into 2018, and the many that happened in-season over the course of four inexplicable months.

The Eagles enter camp healthier than they were a year ago, particularly on offense. There are about a half dozen starters who have yet to make full returns, but the majority have been suited up and participating in at least the positional portion of the first three practices.

Cornerback Jalen Mills is the only starting-caliber player who isn’t practicing and is seemingly in jeopardy of missing the season opener.

But the Eagles’ good fortune could change in a flash. And coach Doug Pederson knows that.

“You never know how the season is going to play out because anything can happen, but it’s encouraging from the standpoint we have a few more guys practicing,” Pederson said Thursday after the first practice. “Guys that didn’t practice this time last year are out there. We still have to be cautious with the guys that are still working through some stuff.”

Pederson has the delicate balancing act of pushing his players to the brink in preparation for the season, while trying to avoid unnecessary injury. He has curtailed practices over his four seasons. He has increasingly softened the workload and limited contact.

The organization meanwhile, has invested significantly in its medical, training and sports science departments over the last decade. And yet, the team endured a 57-percent increase in players lost to injury last season. Twenty-eight players missed 221 games, and of the 28, a significant number experienced abnormal recovery.

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman defended the team’s medical staff leadership, many of whom had just been hired after he decided to shake up the roster following the Super Bowl. But changes were made this offseason. Head physician and internist Stephen Stache left and Arsh Dhanota was hired to be chief medical officer.

Dhanota, who was the medical director of nonoperative sports medicine at Penn Medicine, doesn’t step into Stache’s role, per se, but he will take on some of his responsibilities as the point person for each department. Christopher Dodson remains the head orthopedic doctor and Shireen Mansoori, who was also hired last year in a newly-created role, stays on as director of rehabilitation.

Communication between all the various departments had become an issue last year, team sources said. Stache, who split his time between the Eagles and 76ers, often wasn’t available. Dhanota was brought in partly to improve the flow of information.

“I’m going to punt those questions [on] the medical staff,” Pederson said.

There is, ultimately, only so much the Eagles can do to prevent injuries. They are inevitable. Any number of freak occurrences during a practice can be the cause. And with two inter-squad scrimmages scheduled against the Ravens and four preseason games in August, Pederson can control only so much over the next six weeks.

Reserve cornerback Cre’Von LeBlanc, for instance, became the first player to suffer a significant injury when he sprained his foot Thursday. He was scooting around in a boot and on a roll-a-bout Saturday and could be out for several weeks. He’ll join Mills, who had foot surgery last December, on the sidelines.

But the majority of the Eagles’ injured have been practicing even though they’re coming off surgeries. Three went under the knife during last season: safety Rodney McLeod (ACL, October), defensive end Derek Barnett (rotator cuff, October) and cornerback Ronald Darby (ACL, December). And three just after the season ended in January: defensive tackle Fletcher Cox (foot), linebacker Nigel Bradham (foot) and guard Brandon Brooks (Achilles).

While each handled the question of their timetable differently, even if they’re back by Week 1, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be all the way back. Brandon Graham knows. He underwent ankle surgery last offseason, and returned by the opener, but he said he wasn’t himself until December.

“I know what it feels like to not have an offseason and play catch up,” Graham said. “I don’t like that feeling. … It takes even a year to get your mind right.”

In terms of Graham, Jeffery (torn rotator cuff) and veterans like tackle Jason Peters (ACL) and running back Darren Sproles (ACLs), being one year removed from injury could bode well for their 2019 seasons. The same could be said of defensive tackle Tim Jernigan, who injured his neck last May, and played sparingly late last season.

Peters, 37, said that overcompensating for his knee led to other minor injuries last season. Sproles, 36, didn’t make the same correlation to a nagging hamstring strain, but it’s possible. Age could have been a factor, as well.

The Eagles had several recurring soft-tissue injuries, though. Pederson, when asked about changes the team made to address the increase, said that there would be more stretching, more core exercises, more use of foam rollers, among other preventative measures.

“I think that it does go back to nutrition. It does go back to hydration. It does go back to rest,” Pederson said last month. “All the things the players should be doing to try to help reduce as many of these as we can.”

Rookie Miles Sanders missed most of spring workouts with a hamstring strain. He was ready to go by Thursday, and said Saturday that he felt 100 percent, but the Eagles have limited his reps to help ease him back.

The Eagles will monitor practice time for Peters and Sproles and others like tackle Lane Johnson, center Jason Kelce and safety Malcolm Jenkins, vets who routinely play through injury. And they’ll keep close tabs on receiver Mack Hollins, who missed last season after multiple sports hernia surgeries and has finally returned, and running back Corey Clement, who said that he is close to a full return following December knee injury.

But Wentz will garner the most attention. His good health following the knee injury and last season’s stress fracture in his back is the No. 1 reason to feel optimistic as the Eagles endure practices that can be both beneficial and detrimental. But he knows the value of camp and the preseason.

“To have everybody out there again, it’s exciting to start from Day 1,” Wentz said Thursday. “And just building this chemistry and not try to do it in three weeks, four weeks or five weeks, and just start banking reps now.”

Now is better than later.