Roob's Observations: Which Wrs Are Most Likely To Make Eagles' Final Roster?

Roob's Observations: Which WRs are most likely to make Eagles' final roster? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

What’s the Eagles’ wide receiver competition going to look like at training camp? What’s the holdup with Jalen Carter’s contract? And an Eagles franchise record that stood for 56 years.

OTAs are over, training camp is six weeks away and we’re officially in the only dead zone of the NFL season, six weeks without any games, a draft, a schedule release, summer practices or free agency.

The one thing the six-week dead zone does have is Roob’s 10 Random Eagles Offseason Observations. There are no weeks off for Roob’s Obs! 

WHICH RECEIVERS ARE GOING TO MAKE THE ROSTER? The competition at wide receiver this summer is going to be fascinating to watch. Howie Roseman has piled up an intriguing collection of talent behind DeVonta Smith in the absence of A.J. Brown and it’s going to be fun to see everything fall into place. You start with 1^st-round rookie Makai Lemon, then add offseason acquisitions Dontayvion Wicks, Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore, but there’s more. The Eagles were very high last summer on 6-foot-6 Johnny Wilson, who would have made the team if he hadn’t gotten hurt in camp. His size, physicality and blocking ability set him apart from every other receiver on the roster. You know Howie loves reclamation projects, and Quez Watkins is exactly that. But there’s a reason he’s here, and he’s still got that great speed. And there’s still Darius Cooper, who didn’t do anything in limited snaps to hurt his value, with nine catches and six first downs on 11 targets. There’s also punt returner Britain Covey, a WR by trade, as well as 2025 holdover Danny Gray and recent acquisition Samori Toure. You figure Smith, Lemon and Wicks are locks, and Brown is close to a lock. That essentially leaves Moore, Wilson, Watkins and Cooper and the others for one roster spot. Moore averaged 50-for-541 from 2021 through 2024, Wilson averaged 23 snaps per game in 2024, 4^th-highest among Eagles WRs; Watkins had that 647-yard season in 2021; and Cooper showed a lot of promise last year. My money is on Wilson just because he has such an unusual skill set and frame. He’s different than anyone else, and Roseman values unique traits. With a good camp, I think he sticks. 

WHAT’S UP WITH JALEN CARTER’S CONTRACT? I still think the Eagles and Jalen Carter will come to terms on a long-term deal before the season starts, but you can understand why it’s a tricky negotiation. From a pure talent perspective, Carter has few peers in the NFL. He’s 25, he’s already an all-pro and two-time Pro Bowler and performances like he had in the Rams playoff win in 2024 show just how much of a game changer he can be. Talent-wise, he’s a $40 million player. But there are also concerns that are understandable. There’s the injuries. There’s the fact that his defensive coordinator brought up unprompted that he was out of shape early last year. There’s questions about his maturity, which cost him last year’s season opener against the Cowboys. If you’re Carter, you feel like you deserve to be one of the highest paid defensive linemen in the league. If you’re the Eagles, are you comfortable putting $40 million per year in his pocket when you may have concerns about what he’ll be over the long term? If Jordan Davis is worth $26 million per year, Carter has to be well into the $30s. But also none of the concerns about Carter apply to Davis. He’s a safer payday. So you can see why this hasn’t gotten done yet. When a contract doesn’t get done it’s always about the money. And in this case, the money – the value – is difficult to figure out.

IS JAKE ELLIOTT REALLY THIS BAD? With 77.8 percent accuracy in 2024 and 74.1 percent last year, Jake Elliott is the first NFL kicker in 16 years with consecutive seasons of 25 field goal attempts and worse than 78 percent accuracy. The last kicker before Elliott to do that was. Josh Scobee of the Jaguars, who made 76.0 percent of his kicks in 2008 and 64.3 percent in 2009. Elliott is 22^nd-most accurate out of 23 kickers who’ve attempted 50 field goals over the last two years at 76.2 percent, ahead of only Jake Moody, who made 75.4 percent of his field goal attempts with the Bears, 49ers and Washington in 2024 and 2025. Elliott was very good here for a long time and is the 2^nd-most accurate postseason kicker in NFL history. But if he struggles out of the gate this year, the Eagles are going to have to find someone else.

A REVEALING DEVONTA SMITH STAT: More evidence DeVonta Smith is ready to take over the WR1 responsibility is his career average of 9.1 yards per target. That’s tied for 5^th-highest among active WRs, behind only A.J. Brown (9.8), Justin Jefferson (9.7), Tyreek Hill (9.5) and Jaylen Waddle (9.3) and tied with Deebo Samuel. Interesting to note that over the past three seasons, Smith is 4^th-highest in the NFL and ahead of Brown – 9.4 to 9.2. 

A CHANCE TO SPEAK WITH CHRIS KUPER: It was great to finally get a chance to chat with new Eagles offensive line coach Chris Kuper last week, four months after he was hired. Kuper is really going to be under the microscope this year as he embarks on replacing legendary Jeff Stoutland, but I like how he embraced his position as Stoutland’s replacement, acknowledged Stoutland’s unparalleled place in the o-line coaching universe and didn’t run or hide from the challenge. He just said as long as the linemen realize he can help them, he’ll be fine. He knows his background playing offensive line for eight seasons in the NFL gives him instant credibility, but he still needs to show his coaching chops on a daily basis. Seems like he’s done that so far. 

AN EAGLES RECORD THAT STOOD FOR 56 YEARS:  In 1948, 32-year-old Eagles quarterback Tommy Thompson completed 57 percent of his passes with 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions for a 98.4 passer rating. That passer rating stood as a franchise record (minimum 200 attempts) for 56 years, until Donovan McNabb had a 104.7 rating during the 2004 Super Bowl season. To this day, only four Eagles quarterbacks have had a higher passer rating than Thompson in 1948. The closest anyone else came to breaking Thompson’s record before 5 did it was Randall Cunningham with a 91.6 rating in 1990. To this day, only four QBs have had a higher rating than Thompson did 78 years ago: Jalen Hurts three times, Carson Wentz twice, Michael Vick and McNabb once each. Thompson’s 98.4 is 9^th-highest in Eagles history. It’s also highest in Eagles history by a QB 32 or older. 

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER MICHAEL CARTER: Ever since the Eagles made the trade with the Jets for defensive back Michael Carter back in October, I’ve been thinking back to the other Michael Carter who was with the Eagles during the summer of 1993. Carter signed with the Eagles on July 14, 1993, the same day Keith Byars left the Eagles and signed with the Dolphins. Carter had been a phenomenal defensive tackle with the 49ers in the 1980s, making three Pro Bowl teams and three all-pro teams, including 1^st-team all-pro in 1987. The Eagles cornered the market on signing washed-up veterans that summer with Erik McMillan, Keith Millard, Tim Harris, Mark Bavaro, James Lofton, Ken O’Brien, William Perry, etc. Bavaro played OK in 1993 but the others were shot, including Carter, and on Aug. 16 he left training camp in West Chester and retired. What I was most interested in though wasn’t Carter’s football career but his track career. On June 16, 1979, as a senior at Jefferson High in Dallas, Carter threw the shot put 81 feet, 3 ½ inches at the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento. Today, 47 years later, that remains the national high school shot put record. At the time it was only 14 years old but still an incredible achievement. Carter was notoriously quiet and did not like doing interviews, but I figured he’d be stoked to talk about his shot put record. So I approached him at his locker at the Vet and asked if he knew what a huge throw that was when he released the shot and whether he was surprised the record had lasted so long. He glared at me and basically grunted and walked away. End of interview. The current Michael Carter doesn’t hold any track and field records, but he is much friendlier.

WHY DID THEY SIGN ALL THOSE GUYS? Speaking of Carter, Harris, McMillan and all the other has-beens the Eagles signed back in the summer of 1993, why did Eagles GM Harry Gamble and head coach Rich Kotite have to add all those washed-up veterans? Because they drafted so poorly in the early 1990s they had no other way to build a roster. But it obviously failed miserable, and Kotite and Gamble were both fired after the 1994 season. During the period from 1991 through 1994, the Eagles drafted 41 players and only one of them – 1991 4^th-round pick William Thomas – made a Pro Bowl as an Eagle. Two others made a Pro Bowl after leaving – Charlie Garner and Mitch Berger. After Willie T., the Eagles drafted 38 consecutive players who never made a Pro Bowl as an Eagle, a streak that finally ended with 1995 2^nd-round pick Bobby Taylor. For the sake of comparison, Howie Roseman has drafted 15 Pro Bowlers who’ve made a combined 37 Pro Bowls as Eagles. If you don’t draft well, you’re not going to win. That was true in 1993 and it’s true now.

JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK: In his first 82 career starts, Jalen Hurts has thrown 109 touchdown passes and rushed for 63 touchdowns. His 172 total TDs is 6^th-most in NFL history by a quarterback in his first 82 career starts. He trails only Patrick Mahomes (208 – 196 passing, 12 rushing), Aaron Rodgers (197 – 179, 18), Josh Allen (192 – 151, 41), Dan Marino (189 – 186, 3) and Andrew Luck (178 – 164, 14).

208 … Patrick Mahomes [196 passing, 12 rushing]
197 … Aaron Rodgers [179 passing, 18 rushing]
192 … Josh Allen [151 passing, 41 rushing]
189 … Dan Marino [186 passing, 3 rushing]
178 … Andrew Luck [164 passing, 14 rushing]
172 … Jalen Hurts [109 passing, 63 rushing]
169 … Joe Burrow [157 passing, 12 rushing]
168 … Cam Newton [123 passing, 45 rushing]
165 … Daunte Culpepper [136 passing, 29 rushing]
164 … Brett Favre [155 passing, 9 rushing]

VAN BUREN, WESTBROOK, WILBERT AND WHO??? If I told you only two running backs in Eagles history have averaged 4.5 yards per carry in four straight seasons (minimum 100 carries) and told you Steve Van Buren was one of them, how many guesses would you need for the second one? Shady? Nope. Brian Westbrook? Nah. Wilbert Montgomery? No. Keith Byars? Come on now! It’s actually Miles Sanders, who was one of only three NFL running backs to average 4.5 yards per carry each year from 2019 through 2022. Nick Chubb and Aaron Jones were the others. From a pure stats standpoint, Sanders’ numbers place him among the top running backs in Eagles history. His 65 rushing yards per game are 7^th-most, his 5.0 yards per carry is tied with Saquon Barkley for highest, his 54 percent success rate is highest in franchise history and his 4,650 scrimmage yards are 10^th-most. But Sanders wasn’t as good as the numbers tell you. He had some moments but was never an elite running back. Interesting to note that after spending two years with the Panthers and one with the Cowboys since leaving the Eagles, Sanders is not currently on a roster. Running back is a young man’s game, Sanders is 29 and this could be it for the Eagles’ 2019 2^nd-round pick.