The Philadelphia Eagles will rise or fall this season based on the health of Sam Bradford. The quarterback is coming off of back-to-back ACL injuries which is never what fans want for their starting quarterback. After trading away Nick Foles and not drafting Marcus Mariota, Bradford is the man in charge of the offense. The quarterback has yet to be a full participant in OTAs, but the Eagles remain confident he will be healthy come Week 1 of the season.
According to Corey Seidman of CSNPhilly.com, the Eagles are very encouraged by what they are seeing from Bradford in OTAs and have confidence that he will be healthy and "ready to go when it's time to play for real." Bradford has been on the field with his knee heavily braced as he begins to go through 7-on-7 drills with the team. He has been taking all of the first-team reps over Mark Sanchez. However, if Bradford is not as healthy as the Eagles are stressing he is, it will be Sanchez under center with the offense and not the other way around.
The Eagles did their best to surround Bradford with playmakers. Nelson Agholor will join Jordan Matthews as two of the top receivers along with Josh Huff. DeMarco Murray is expected to be the starting running back, but the amount of carries he will be getting is unknown. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported that Murray and Ryan Mathews were splitting reps in practice as the Eagles have no intentions of letting Murray have the same amount of carries he did last year in Dallas. According to running back coach Duce Staley, the team is not worried about trying to get everyone involved as Darren Sproles also expects his fair amount of carries as well.
"We want to get back to running the ball," Staley said, via ESPN.com. "We want to get back to just taking on the line of scrimmage. You do that, of course, with the offensive line, and you do that with good running backs. We want [our running back] to jam the ball into the hole and be a tough runner. We do not want a jingle-footed back trying to hit a home run. We want him to hit the ball into the line and get the tough yards. We are a blue-collar guy going to work."
The Eagles are hoping their offense remains just as deadly as it has been in years past. Bradford is expected to headline that effort, but all eyes will be on his knee for the time being.
