Why Eagles Have 7 WR On Active Roster And What They Could Plan With Open Spot

The Philadelphia Eagles placed Landon Dickerson on injured reserve and promoted Britain Covey to the active roster in a corresponding move. To take Covey's spot on the practice squad, the Eagles signed tight end Josiah Deguara to the practice squad.

With Dickerson on injured reserve and Covey's promotion to the active roster, the Eagles still have an available spot on the 53-man roster following the Eli Stowers injured reserve move last week.

The Eagles have seven wide receivers on the active roster and three tight ends. Something has to give right?

Why Eagles have 7 WR on active roster

The Eagles will have seven wide receivers following Covey's promotion, even though two of the wide receivers on the active roster didn't play on Sunday. Hollywood Brown was active and didn't get a snap while Elijah Moore was inactive.

"Hollywood could obviously help us, and we want to get him into the football game because his speed is real. It just didn't work out that way," said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. "We want to get him in the football game. We'll make a better effort to do that next time because I know the play making ability that he can bring with his speed but was pleased with how the wide outs played as a whole."

The Eagles are going to have a role for Brown going forward. They may also have a role for Moore too given Makai Lemon's struggles in his debut (although there were a few plays where he was open).

Darius Cooper isn't going to be inactive after locking down the second gunner spot on kickoff and punt coverage. Covey is the punt returner and now on the active roster, so the Eagles made that decision sooner rather than later (he had two practice squad elevations).

Seven wide recievers is unorthodox, but the Eagles are going to play six of them on a regular game day. Made sense to bring Covey up now, since that decision was going to come to a head in two weeks.

What about the final roster spot?

The Eagles do have three tight ends on the active roster, but E.J. Jenkins only played one snap on Sunday. Of the 55 offensive snaps, the Eagles ran "12 personnel" and "13 personnel" just 27.3% of the snaps. There was little need for Jenkins or Johnny Mundt.

With a veteran pass catching tight end, that could change. Zach Ertz could be an option for that 53rd spot if the Eagles wanted to keep four tight ends. If they aren't going to use Jenkins much, that could be a move to improve the pass catchers at tight end and deploy more "12 personnel" going forward.

Perhaps an Ertz reunion is the move here, but the Eagles could also bring up another offensive lineman from the practice squad for that 53rd spot. Deguara is the only tight end on the practice squad, so he might not be an elevation this week.

There are a few ways the Eagles could go here. Based on the snap counts, the last roster spot may be a tight end.

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