Atlanta Falcons vs. Philadelphia Eagles: Friday Injury Review

The Atlanta Falcons travel to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday and have to fight some injury situations that they might not have been expecting earlier in the season. The Eagles aren’t close to 100 percent either. Atlanta needs to use their depth to their advantage in this game and should be able to win it if they can impact the Eagles weak points.

Philadelphia Eagles Injury Report

The Eagles have quite a few injuries and situations that will hurt their shot at beating the Falcons this week. Let’s start along the offensive line. Currently, they are missing Allen Barbre and Lane Johnson to a combination of injury and suspension. On top of that, Brandon Brooks was sick on Friday and could be limited in game action.

The replacement for Barbre will likely be either Stefan Wisniewski or Isaac Seumalo. On top of that, the Eagles are replacing Johnson with Halapoulivaati Vaitai. Vaitai has been bad during the beginning of the season and can be attacked early and often by the Falcons. With center Jason Kelce under-performing, this could be a good opportunity for the Falcons pass rush to impress.

On the defensive line, both Bennie Logan and Taylor Hart are questionable and could wind up missing this game. If they do, the Eagles would be stuck with Beau Allen next to Fletcher Cox on the interior. If they play, they might be good targets to run right at due to their injuries. But the biggest issue for the Eagles comes from their cornerback group.

They will already be missing their starting nickel corner, but with Leodis McKelvin banged up and Nolan Carroll not very good, the Eagles may not have the health to compete effectively with Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu. McKelvin in particular should be attacked should he show up to play still banged up against the best receiver in the NFL.

Atlanta Falcons Injury Report

The Falcons are going to be relatively healthy once again. However, they are going to be missing their best cornerback on the roster in Desmond Trufant to go along with Tevin Coleman and Jacob Tamme out this week. On the bright side, they seem to have finally found the right replacement for Derrick Shelby after the former Dolphin tore his Achilles a few weeks back in Courtney Upshaw.

Wth Tamme out, the Falcons will continue to rely on Austin Hooper to be the primary tight end in the offense and should expect to see him continue to attack the seams. He’s also an effective blocker and could wind up being the starting tight end through the end of the season if Tamme goes through with a shoulder surgery that ESPN’s Vaughn McClure suggests that he’s considering.

Coleman out again isn’t as big of a deal because the Falcons will again just continue to give more carries to Devonta Freeman and Terron Ward. Atlanta will be able to absorb the loss of Coleman’s explosion by featuring more Taylor Gabriel in the offense where needed and could turn out to be just fine without having the second-year running back out of Indiana for another week.

The loss of Desmond Trufant is the worst loss this week. Trufant has been a top five cornerback in the NFL this season and will be tough to replace. Luckily, the Falcons have a second-round pick from the 2015 draft in Jalen Collins that will replace Trufant in the lineup. Collins has shown an aptitude for the Falcons defense and could wind up having a breakout with more playing time.