On and Off

The initial 53-man roster for the Philadelphia Eagles came with a share of surprises.

On the latest episode of “Inside The Birds,” Adam Caplan and Geoff Mosher discussed players who made and were left off the roster after cutdown day. 

GETTY IMAGES: Fourth-year TE E.J. Jenkins has made the Philadelphia Eagles’ initial 53-man roster.

Cole Payton

Adam Caplan: “They want to develop Cole Payton. I would argue he probably would have not been claimed on waivers, there are some people around the league who don’t believe that he’s a quarterback, that he has to be a fullback, not big enough to be a tight end. What you want to do is get him to the offseason.”

Geoff Mosher: “We have talked about the complications of trying to develop a fourth quarterback because the starter gets all of the reps in practice. Oftentimes the backup does not get reps because you’re preparing your starters to play each week. The third quarterback, in this case Andy Dalton, will get almost zero reps and any development that’s going to happen for Cole Payton has to happen after practices, special periods that they do before a game.”

Elijah Moore

Caplan: “Moore deserves it, but unless he returns punts this week, he’s not going to play.”

Mosher: “I’m not confident by the time we do our next podcast that he’s still going to be on the 53.”

E.J. Jenkins

Caplan: “This one was a minor surprise. E.J. Jenkins has been on and off the roster several times for three years…they just clearly don’t like Cam Latu.”

Mosher: “E.J. had a really bad drop in the preseason, so did Latu. He can block and obviously if you want to run some 12 and maybe do some 13 [personnel] early on, you can put (Johnny) Mundt and Jenkins out there to block and (Dallas) Goedert as a flex. You and I thought you can also do that with Latu, but they see something more in E.J. Jenkins.”

Uar Bernard/Josh Weru

Mosher: “If you were going to ask me one thing I’m surprised about, it’s that neither Uar Bernard and Josh Weru were kept on the 53.”

Caplan: “Here’s the way I see this: there’s no chance that Uar Bernard plays this season. Knowing that, why would you claim him?”

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.