One Answer To Eagles' Tight End Shortage Could Already Be On Roster

Most of the Eagles’ offseason thus far has been devoted to A.J. Brown, with volumes of material written about the receiver who could be sent packing any day as could an announcement be made that he will be returning for season No. 5 in Philadelphia.

Right behind him is the tight end position, with the expectation that Dallas Goedert, Grant Calcaterra, and Kylen Granson are all jumping ship this offseason. The draft should furnish an answer as to who’s got next, but so could the existing roster. It would be a surprising, and certainly an outside-the-box type move, but one that might be under consideration with a new tight end coach in Ryan Mahaffey.

It would be a move that would make receiver Johnny Wilson a tight end. He has the frame for it at 6-6. His last weight was listed at 230 pounds, but after a year away, presumably getting bigger and stronger while rehabbing an injury that cost him all last season, that weight could be closer to 240.

Wilson’s ability to block in both the run and pass game is what helped him play 16 games with 369 offensive snaps (34 percent) as a rookie, helping Saquon Barkley rush for more than 2,500 yards. He only caught five passes for 38 yards and looked like he had 10 thumbs when Jalen Hurts threw him a short pass in Super Bowl LIX that a wide-open Wilson inexplicably dropped.

Out-Of-Sight Sixth-Round Pick Has Tight End Size

Johnny Wilson talks to reporters after Eagles training camp practice on Aug. 4, 2024. | Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

The Eagles’ sixth-round pick in 2024 looked like he was playing his way into an increased receiving role last summer until he suffered a knee and ankle injury after his leg got rolled up on during a training camp practice in August.

He was out-of-sight, out-of-mind after that, with only an occasional sighting in the locker room during media availabilities.

The Eagles have tried turning receivers into tight ends previously, but nothing has really materialized, though E.J. Jenkins is showing promise in making the conversion and is still on the roster. He even made a touchdown catch in the 2024 regular-season finale.

The organization tried it with their second-round pick in 2019, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, when it was clear the 57th overall pick in that draft couldn’t be effective as a receiver. Instead of giving up on him, the Eagles tried to turn the 6-2, 255-pounder into a tight end in 2022. It didn’t work. He bounced around a bit after being released, trying to make it as a tight end elsewhere, but it didn’t work out for him, and he’s out of football.

Tyree Jackson was one of their projects, except he was going from a 6-7, 250-pound college quarterback at Buffalo to tight end. He certainly had the size and may have been playing himself into a role in August of 2021 until he made a great leaping catch in the end zone during a joint practice with the Patriots, but landed on his back with a thud, breaking a bone in his back. It didn’t require surgery, but he missed 10 weeks, the kind of setback that can’t happen when trying a new position.

Jackson is still around. He spent last year on the Commanders’ practice squad/injured reserve. The Eagles signed Hakeem Butler in 2020 hoping the 6-5 receiver could be a tight end, but that didn’t work.

Can Wilson do it? It’s worth a shot, but even if he can’t, he could still be a factor as a big-bodied receiver.