PHILADELPHIA _ On Tuesday, Oct. 9, Carson Wentz popped up on the Eagles' injury report, listed as "limited" because he needed "rest." He landed on the report again Wednesday, Oct. 17, again "limited," this time with a "back" problem, and received the same listing the following Wednesday.
The listings seemed innocuous. After all, he'd played three games by Oct. 7. He'd been limited in training camp due to a knee injury suffered the previous December. On Oct. 9, he was only two days removed from playing, with another game Oct. 11 _ a short-week, Thursday Night Football appearance. If he needed rest, that made sense. He was not "limited" later in those weeks; he returned to full participation in practice.
On Wednesday, Doug Pederson began his weekly press conference by listing injuries, which was unusual for Pederson, who volunteers information like a prisoner of war.
The reason Pederson changed protocol is now obvious: He wanted to minimize alarm when Wentz didn't practice Wednesday. That plan failed. Within an hour NFL.com, the league website, reported that Wentz's ongoing back problem _ which doctors repeatedly examined the past two months _ might now cost him the season. Thursday, reports surfaced that he has a fractured vertebra. The initial prescription did not involve surgery, but sources said he will seek outside medical advice hereon out.
Who can blame him?
With a rash of lingering ailments, a boatload of soft-tissue injuries and a number of disturbing incidents in the season's first 14 weeks, Eagles players should be looking askance at the Eagles' rebuilt medical staff. Wentz's injury is just the latest alarming development surrounding the Eagles' reconstructed medical staff.
Its reconstruction was an odd process.
About two weeks after the team won Super Bowl LII, head athletic trainer Chris Peduzzi left the team after 19 years, under strange circumstances: officially, he resigned, but one league source said he was forced out. Peduzzi issued a stock statement but has declined to comment further.
Incredibly, Peduzzi was not officially replaced until June, by Titans assistant Jerome Reid; this, despite several major, ongoing injury crises, chief among them Wentz's reconstructed knee, Alshon Jeffery's rebuilt rotator cuff and Brandon Graham's ankle, which ultimately needed surgery.
Graham finally got his operation May 1. About a month and a half later, the Eagles fired Peter DeLuca, the head physician, and internist Gary Dorshimer, both of the Rothman Institute, and both 20-year team docs. The Eagles then tweaked their doctor roster.
They hired Rothman internist Stephen Stache as head team physician and promoted Rothman orthopedic surgeon Christopher Dodson, formerly an assistant team physician, to be head orthopedic physician. However, only Stache and Jeremy Close are completely new to the team's seven staff physicians. That includes 15-year Rothman spine specialist Alexander Vaccaro, now the the longest-tenured medical staffer.
So, no ... not exactly an overhaul.
It's dangerous, and perhaps irresponsible, to question the acumen and performance of the Eagles' medical staff over the past few years. Football is a violent game, players are incredibly tough, medicine is hard, and, with only 16 games per season, decisions about whether to play with an injury often pose uncomfortable dilemmas for players, coaches and doctors.
Misdiagnoses happen. Wrong decisions are made. Players usually stay quiet.
Not Jordan Matthews. In March, he told a Buffalo radio station that his knee and ankle injuries had been misdiagnosed by the Eagles before they traded him to the Bills in the summer of 2017 (he has since returned).
And not former Eagles linebacker Emmanuel Acho, now an ESPN analyst, who took to Twitter on Thursday and claimed the Eagles routinely diminished players' injuries in order to keep them on the field.
Notably, Acho hasn't been an Eagle since he left the NFL in November of 2015, but, just as notably, at least a dozen current players played with Acho.
We asked Acho on Thursday if he still communicates with those players, and if they have complaints about the current medical staff. He also is the brother of Sam Acho, a linebacker with the Bears. Emmanuel Acho declined to comment.
So did team owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman, who oversee the medical staffing. The team did not make available Drs. Stache, Dodson or Vaccaro, or Reid, the new trainer.
Little wonder. They would have to answer questions about the hamstrings that have kept Darren Sproles and Sidney Jones in and out of the lineup; the issues that cost Mack Hollins the entire season; or the fact that No. 1 running back Jay Ajayi was allowed to return to the Vikings game in Week Five after he'd torn his ACL.
And, of course, they would have to explain how they might have missed a broken back suffered by the most important player in franchise history.
