Next Man Up: A Battered Eagles Receiving Corps Heads Into Sunday Against the Rams

PHILADELPHIA — The injury report dropped Friday afternoon and it read like a bad dream. Six Eagles ruled out against the Los Angeles Rams. Six. And not role players buried on the depth chart — these are men this offense and defense have leaned on all season.

DeVonta Smith, out with a hamstring injury. Zack Baun, still in the concussion protocol. Dallas Goedert, knee. Marcus Epps, groin. Fred Johnson, knee. Hollywood Brown, ankle. Read that list twice and tell me you’re not a little nervous about Sunday.

Here’s the thing about being an Eagles fan, though — the kind of fan I grew up being in Camden, where the Birds aren’t a hobby, they’re a bloodline — you learn early that this franchise has always been built on the next man up. Not the marquee name. The guy behind him who’s been waiting.

you learn early that this franchise has always been built on the next man up.Samuel Banks

Wicks moves to the front of the line

That guy, this week, is Dontayvion Wicks. With Smith and Brown both down, Wicks is slated to line up as the No. 1 receiver Sunday. That’s a big jump for a player who’s spent most of his Eagles tenure as a complementary piece, and the margin for a drop or a blown route shrinks when you’re suddenly the top target in a game the team needs.

The defense has its own hole to fill. With Baun sidelined, Jeremiah Trotter Jr. — a name that means something in this town, and not just because of the last name — is the next man up at linebacker. Trotter has waited for exactly this kind of moment, and South Jersey knows the bloodline runs through tackles, not headlines.

The attrition keeps stacking up, too. Dallas Goedert and Fred Johnson are both down with knee injuries and Marcus Epps is out in the secondary, all against a Rams offense that doesn’t make life easy.

What Sunday comes down to

So what does it come down to? It comes down to Jalen Hurts doing what he does when the pieces around him get shuffled — managing the game, protecting the football, and trusting the backs and the line to carry the load when the passing game is short on its usual weapons. It comes down to a defense that has to tackle in space and get off the field on third down without one of its leaders in the middle.

Nobody’s circling this as a statement win. Depleted rosters rarely produce those. But I’ve watched this team long enough to know that the Sundays where everything goes wrong on paper are exactly the ones that tell you what a locker room is made of.

Wicks gets his shot. Trotter gets his. Somewhere in Camden, an eight-year-old is watching his first Eagles game the way I watched mine, learning the lesson this franchise teaches better than any other: around here, the next man doesn’t ask if he’s ready. He just goes.

Based on reporting from the Philadelphia Eagles, NBC Sports Philadelphia, Bleeding Green Nation, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.