Caleb Sturgis Release Is Bad News For Eagles

By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

On Monday, Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that the Chargers were releasing former Eagles kicker Caleb Sturgis.

Not a surprise but significant: Chargers are releasing kicker Caleb Sturgis, per source.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 5, 2018

Sturgis was released after he missed two extra point attempts and his only field goal attempt on Sunday. He had missed four of his 13 field goal attempts as well as a shocking six of his 15 extra point attempts.

His release is bad news for the Eagles. Since he was not with his new team long enough, the Eagles will lose what was projected to be a seventh-round pick in the 2019 draft.

A brief idea of the process is that compensatory picks are given to teams that lose better players than they sign. A player is decided to be better based on their new salaries.

Due to some clever wording in the contract that Mike Wallace signed with the Eagles, the only player that is expected to count against the Eagles is Ngata. His signing originally cancelled out the Eagles loss of Sturgis and allowed the Eagles to receive a compensatory pick from LeGarrette Blount leaving. Now that Sturgis has been released and is no longer seen as a loss by the formula, the Ngata signing cancels out the Blount loss instead.

OverTheCap.com had projected that the Eagles would get the final compensatory pick for Blount. This would have ultimately been the final pick in the draft, allowing the birds to select 2019’s Mr. Irrelevant. Instead, it looks as though the Eagles will only have 10 picks in the 2019 draft. They now project to have:

In parts of three seasons with the Eagles, Sturgis made 56 of 66 field goal attempts and 66 of 70 extra point attempts. After suffering an injury at the beginning of last season, Sturgis was placed on injured reserve and the Eagles signed Jake Elliot. They haven’t looked back since.