Eagles safety James Bradberry suffered a leg injury in practice on Wednesday and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks, a league source confirmed to NBC Sports Philadelphia. Bradberry was placed on Injured Reserve.
Bradberry, 31, made the Eagles’ 53-man roster this season after converting to safety in the offseason. But now he’s going to miss some time.
According to the initial report from NFL Network, Bradberry won’t need surgery but the injury did involve a tendon. He could return later in the season.
The Eagles put TE Albert Okwuegbunam and WR Ainias Smith on IR with a destination to return before the cutdown deadline so they are allowed to return just six more players from IR during the course of the season. But since we’re through cuts, they won’t have to designate those players anymore.
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To fill Bradberry's spot on the roster, the Eagles promoted LB Oren Burks from the practice squad. They then signed backup OL Brett Toth to the practice squad.
Bradberry is entering his ninth NFL season after playing very poorly at outside cornerback in 2023. He said this summer that he actually suggested the switch to safety after seeing the writing on the wall.
While there were definitely some bumps along the way this summer, especially in that preseason game against the Patriots, Bradberry didn’t look terribly out of place at safety in training camp. Still, it surprised plenty of people to see that he made the initial 53-man roster.
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Eagles general manager Howie Roseman on Tuesday explained the decision to keep Bradberry:
“James always has had really good football instincts,” Roseman said. “When you see him play safety every day here and see his ability to diagnose his football instincts. I think for all of us, that's a transition, that's a different position than playing outside corner.
"He's got a skill set. It's a long season. We already know that he's had tremendous success in this league playing outside corner as well. With the goals that we have for this football team, having a veteran player like that on the roster that we know we can rely on when called upon, we felt like it was important.”
The Eagles’ starters at safety going into this season are C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Reed Blankenship. Their top backup is Avonte Maddox, who also has the versatility to play nickel corner. Their next guy up after Maddox is Tristin McCollum, who made the roster after a strong summer showing.
After those four, the Eagles have Caden Sterns on the practice squad but he’s still injured and isn’t ready to contribute. Rookie Andre’ Sam is also on the practice squad after a solid summer. They have 2023 third-round pick Sydney Brown on the Reserve/PUP list as he rehabs from an ACL tear from late in his rookie season. Brown will have to miss at least the first four games of this season on the PUP.
Rookie second-round pick Cooper DeJean has mostly been playing nickel corner and some on the outside but he might be able to play some safety too. DeJean said he studied all three positions when he missed most of training camp with a hamstring injury. Perhaps this injury to Bradberry will lead the Eagles in that direction.
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