By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor
Ronald Darby left the Eagles game against Detroit at halftime on Sunday and was promptly ruled out for the remainder of the game with a hamstring injury.
On Monday, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported that Darby was expected to miss a few weeks while his colleague Mike Garafolo reports that the injury could easily sideline him for a month or more.
Wouldn't be surprised if he was out a month or so. Sounds like he has a pretty significant hamstring injury. https://t.co/7XYzfXFlQW
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) September 23, 2019
Not going into it too much, Darby has been bad this season. In fact, the defense didn’t look worse off without him.
This could potentially be good news for the Eagles, depending on whether or not this is actually a new injury. If this has been an ongoing issue that Darby just informed the training staff of, there could be hope that he will improve upon his return.
In the meantime, the Eagles are left with the young trio of Avonte Maddox, Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas. This will be a huge showing as the trio represent the cornerback room for the next few seasons.
That also means that the Eagles currently have no reserve corners on their roster, so a move will be made. The most likely move is that Craig James is once again promoted from the practice squad, but a Jalen Ramsey trade is still possible and Orlando Scandrick and Josh Hawkins remain free agents.
As for where the Eagles will find room, that is a tough one.
The Birds’ injury report reads like a depth chart with two receivers, a tight end, two tackles, two defensive linemen, a linebacker and now a corner on the report. That doesn’t even include Malik Jackson, Joe Ostman, Cre’Von LeBlanc or Jordan Mailata who are all on the injured reserve or Jalen Mills on the PUP list.
At this point and with Kamu Grugier-Hill set to return Thursday, the two deepest positions would seem to be safety and linebacker. The most likely candidates for the team to move on from from those positions are probably Rudy Ford and LJ Fort, neither of whom have contributed to the defense.