After the Philadelphia Eagles play the Green Bay Packers in week 3 of the preseason on Saturday night, they have to cut down their roster from 90 players to 75 by Tuesday.
It's never an easy job to hand someone their pink-slip, but head coach Chip Kelly believes this year will be the toughest evaluation process of his tenure in Philadelphia. He believes the Eagles roster this season possesses way more depth than the two previous years. Kelly knows he will have to release some good football players.
"I believe we'll cut some players that will make other rosters," Kelly said in a press conference yesterday. "So that's our goal for all of our players. We tell them that on day 1 – I want them to play in the NFL. Hopefully it's on our team. If it's not our team, it's on another team. But it is going to be difficult and we'll have to sit down long and hard after this Packer game."
Here are three notable Eagles players that might not be on the roster after Tuesday.
- Quarterback Tim Tebow: Tebow has somewhat improved his slow throwing motion during this training camp, but is that going to be enough to make the roster? Tebow's still taking too long to make to get rid of the football on many occasions, which has led to a couple of big losses in yardage. However, Tebow has shown the ability to run the football down near the goal-line, and the Eagles had difficulties finishing off drives in the red-zone last year. The Eagles were 23rd in the NFL last year in terms of red-zone touchdown efficiency.
- Outside-linebacker Marcus Smith: Smith, the former first-round draft pick of the Eagles in the 2014 NFL draft, had a good training camp before suffering a hamstring injury. Smith couldn't even find the field as a member of the special teams unit last year. There may be too many question about Smith's game in order to keep him on the roster. One thing that may keep Smith around is a $1.77 million dollar cap hit the Eagles would face if he were to be cut.
- Inside-linebacker Najee Goode: Goode is at a log-jammed position. The Eagles also have Kiko Alonso, Mychal Kendricks, DeMeco Ryans and third-round pick Jordan Hicks at the inside-linebacker position. Additionally, linebacker Brad Jones has the ability to play both inside and outside linebacker, which could make Goode expendable.
It will be interesting to see who is still an Eagle on Tuesday.
Kelly must make cuts again for his final 53-man roster following the Eagles last preseason game at the New York Jets on Sept. 3.
Michael Malia is a contributing intern for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Facebook (Michael Malia) or Twitter @Michael_Malia.
