When Andy Reid ran down injuries Wednesday morning, he added a new name to the list: Trent Cole.
The Eagles Pro Bowl defensive end suffered an injury to his AC joint (shoulder) early in Monday’s practice, but it didn’t start bothering him until that night.
“It’s going to be day-to-day so we’ll see how it goes,” Reid said. “He’s got swelling. Rick [Burkholder] tried to get it calmed down last night, came back this morning, it was swollen a little bit more this morning than it was even yesterday. So he’ll keep working on it. If he can get that swelling out, then he’ll be back. It could be a day, it could be a week.”
Jason Babin, the defensive end who generally lines up opposite Cole, is also out with a right calf strain. And Mike Patterson is not participating in camp while he recovers from offseason brain surgery. In other words, three out of four players (Cullen Jenkins being the exception) on the Eagles’ first-team defensive line are currently sidelined.
That means a chance for other players to get more reps. With Babin out, we’ve seen Jenkins slide over to left defensive end on occasion. And Brandon Graham has been getting a shot there too. Rookie Vinny Curry and second-year player Phillip Hunt will be called on as well. Veteran Darryl Tapp generally backs up Cole at right defensive end.
At defensive tackle, Derek Landri and Fletcher Cox have been running with the ones, taking Patterson’s place.
Meanwhile, tight end Brent Celek, recovering from a sprained MCL in his right knee, was working out on the side field Wednesday morning, but is not ready to go yet.
“The thing he can’t do right now, he’s got to be able to cut,” Reid said. “He’s doing ok, you saw him running the hoops over there, and he’s getting better, but it’s not quite ready to go today. We’ll see here in the next couple days how he improves. He’s taking big steps everyday.”
Clay Harbor and Brett Brackett have been running with the first team in Celek’s place.
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