Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith missed his second straight practice on Friday afternoon with a knee injury he suffered against the Seahawks on Monday night.
Smith, 25, has yet to miss a game in his three-year NFL career, playing 48 of 48 games in the regular season and 4 of 4 in the postseason.
If Smith can’t play on Christmas Day, the Eagles’ receivers for that game would be A.J. Brown, Quez Watkins, Julio Jones, Olamide Zaccheaus and Britain Covey. Smith is an incredibly durable player, though, so we’ll see on Saturday if he’s able to return to practice in any capacity.
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This season, Smith has 74 catches for 957 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Smith was one of five Eagles to miss practice on Friday for the second consecutive day. The others were CB Darius Slay (knee), LG Landon Dickerson (thumb), LB Zach Cunningham (knee) and LB Nicholas Morrow (abdomen).
Both Cam Jurgens (pectoral) and Avonte Maddox (pectoral) were practicing again after being listed as full participants on Thursday.
We already know the Eagles will be without Slay and Dickerson in this game. Both players are expected to return in the next few weeks but are getting over surgeries. Slay had arthroscopic knee surgery last Tuesday and Dickerson had thumb surgery on Wednesday. Neither player has been put on IR for a reason.
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At linebacker, things are a little dicey without the Eagles’ top three linebackers. Nakobe Dean is already out for the season and now Cunningham and Morrow might not be available for this game. Cunningham missed last week with an injury and Morrow has joined him on the injury report.
That means the Eagles are down to Shaq Leonard and Ben VanSumeren as the off-ball linebackers on the 53-man roster. The other two linebackers with that group on Friday were practice squad linebacker Brandon Smith and Patrick Johnson, who is typically an outside linebacker but can play off-ball. Johnson got his first defensive snaps of the 2023 season on Monday night in Seattle.
At left guard, the Eagles had veteran Sua Opeta taking reps early in practice. Opeta filled in for Cam Jurgens last week. It looks like he’ll flip to the other side of the center for this one.
The Eagles practiced outside on Friday despite frigid temperatures. The only non-lineman wearing shorts was rookie safety Sydney Brown.
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