By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
As the Eagles roster begins to take shape, head coach Doug Pederson elaborated on his philosophy when it comes to cutting players on Monday. Pederson noted that the hardest roster decisions for him to make this year are the players in the trenches.
"Offensive and defensive line," Pederson said. "There’s a lot of bodies there and there’s a lot of good competition at those two spots. Corner's another one that’s having tremendous work there. A lot of times you end up cutting players that are good players for you that have success elsewhere."
The Philadelphia roster was cut to 85 players after the team parted ways with three skilled position players — receivers T.J. Graham and Xavier Rush and running back Cedric O’Neal – as well as center Bruce Johnson, before adding linebacker Stephen Tulloch. The Eagles first-year head coach indicated that there are a variety of factors that go into deciding whether to keep a player, including some that the player can’t control.
"You look at everything," Pederson said. "Especially with young players their roles usually are special team valued with us, and then do they have practice squad eligibility? That’s a way to keep guys on your team if the need arises during the regular season. I don’t get into all the numbers stuff, I leave that up to Howie [Roseman], but at the end of the day were going to find the best 53 going into Cleveland."
After two vanilla preseason games to knock off the rust, Pederson will give quarterback Sam Bradford a specific plan of attack against the Indianapolis defense.
"We’re going to give him more of a gameplan this week," Pederson said. "I want to see the completion percentage be 65, 67 percent. You’d love to see a touchdown pass in there."
Pederson also officially announced the signing of Tulloch following the season-ending injury to Joe Walker. Pederson is adamant that the familiarity between Tulloch and defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz will help the defense improve sooner rather than later.
"Jim’s had great success with defenses in the National Football League," Pederson said. "His players always play at a high level. Anytime you can grab a player that you’ve worked with in the past, it helps the overall learning and the overall process of the defense."
You can watch the full press conference from Pederson below.
