Brandon Brooks Reveals More; Eagles May Turn To Matt Pryor
Brandon Brooks had one more 60-yard shuttle to finish. The Eagles right guard bent down to touch the line after his next-to-last shuttle, the seventh of eight he had planned this past Monday when he heard it:
POP.
That’s when he knew his left Achilles had torn.
Brandon Brooks took to Twitter on Wednesday to reveal exactly how the injury that ended his 2020 season before it even started happened.
Then there was another item of interest that cropped up on social media and that was Brooks still going through his jiujitsu workout, with his left foot in a boot.
Is there any wonder that Brooks returned in less than eight months from tearing his right Achilles in January of 2019 during a playoff game and is there any doubt he will be ready to go by spring of 2021?
“The direction I’ll continue to move is forward,” said Brooks in his tweet.
Meanwhile, the Eagles must move forward without Brooks this season.
Head coach Doug Pederson said the process of filling the gaping hole Brooks left behind at right guard will be first viewed from within, which probably means that Matt Pryor will get the first swing at it.
Pryor was a sixth-round pick in 2018 out of TCU. He saw his first game action in 2019 and started his first game, which happened to be in the playoffs.
Pryor spoke to the Eagles Insider Podcast on Tuesday and his comments are on the team’s web site.
"I felt it kind of helped me escalate my game," Pryor said on the podcast.
Pryor said that it was also helpful going against some of the best defensive linemen in the NFL during practice the past two years, no doubt referring to Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, and others.
"I still feel like I've got a lot to learn and I'm glad to have so much experience around me on the O-line."
Pryor has spent a portion of his offseason working out with right tackle Lane Johnson and others at Johnson’s workout facility dubbed “The House of Lane.”
"I'm going to be ready to go," said Pryor said. "It's time to take my game to a new level. I know the opportunity is there. You don't like it to happen when somebody gets hurt. We all feel for Brandon. But he will be helping me, as he's done in the past, and I'm going to be at my best."
