Nick Sirianni Shuts Down OBJ Speculation
PHILADELPHIA - Veteran receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. took a mini-tour of the past week, visiting the New York Giants, Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys as he searches for his next NFL stop.
Complicating matters is that Beckham suffered a torn ACL while playing for the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI back on Feb. 13.
An ACL is typically a nine-month rehab, a demarcation line that OBJ passed on Nov. 13 although there have been conflicting reports on whether he would be able to help anyone he signs with immediately.
That didn't stop Mike Florio from throwing the Eagles into the mix, which could mean everything from Howie Roseman trying to raise the price for either the Cowboys or Giants to Philadelphia actually being interested with their championship window wide open.
The former is more likely than the latter especially now that it's clear that Quez Watkins didn't suffer any kind of serious injury to his shoulder in Sunday's win over Tennessee.
Although the Eagles had a walkthrough on Wednesday, he was estimated as limited on the injury report.
Had Watkins suffered a more serious injury perhaps Philadelphia would consider a ring-chasing OBJ if the health checked out.
The Eagles, of course, recently signed veteran defensive tackles Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh, who both sat out half of the season while waiting for the contenders to unveil themselves.
Head coach Nick Sirianni downplayed any interest in the five-time 1,000-yard receiver.
"Really happy with the (WR) room that we have," he said on Wednesday afternoon. "One of the best wideout rooms, yeah, the best wideout room I've ever been a part of in the NFL. We've had some good ones. This is the best one we've had."
The Eagles' top WR, A.J. Brown is considered top-10 in the NFL and DeVonta Smith is among the best No. 2 WRs. The speedy Watkins is a big play threat and No. 4 WR Zach Pascal is a Sirianni favorite who embraces the dirty work.
"I love what obviously A.J., everybody knows what A.J. and DeVonta are doing, right?" said Sirianni. "Then you have Quez who is continuing to come on and continuing to make plays, continuing to be that big speed receiver that we need. Then you have Zach Pascal, who is very critical to a team, the type of play he brings.
"Your fourth has to be a special teams contributor, which Zach is. He has to be willing to do the dirty work and be able to back up every single position, which he does. And have a specialty role, which he does, too, have that."
Sirianni also mentioned the improvement of undrafted rookie Britain Covey.
"Your fifth guy better play special teams. Our fifth guy is our returner who had his best game as a professional last week," said the coach. "So, yeah, I'm really excited about that room.
"I'll leave it at that."
While Sirianni isn't in charge of personnel, Roseman's success this season is tied to the idea he provides players the coaching staff covets so don't expect OBJ in Philadelphia.
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
