The Philadelphia Eagles are dealing with a host of injuries at the wide receiver position, and on Monday, they almost had to go to an unexpected emergency option.
Nelson Agholor was inactive with a knee injury and then Alshon Jeffery suffered a foot injury in the second quarter and was lost for the game. That left the team with J.J. Arcega-Whiteside and Greg Ward Jr. as their only healthy receivers. Then, Arcega-Whiteside suffered some kind of lower body injury in overtime. He limped off the field leaving the Eagles with Ward as their only wide receiver.
The game ended soon after on a Zach Ertz touchdown pass, but if necessary, the Eagles had an emergency wide receiver available: 40 year old backup quarterback Josh McCown!
After the game, head coach Doug Pederson mentioned McCown was the emergency guy, and the QB confirmed that Pederson was not in fact joking (via NBC Sports Philadelphia).
“I was ready to go. We had the helmet ready to go. Equipment guys were all over it, had the radio-less helmet — can’t have two green dots on the field at the same time — so, we were ready to roll. And shoot I’ll get in there and go. Obviously, as a quarterback, you know the offense. I guess it was 12 years ago in Foxborough I had to go into it back then.”
McCown has three receptions in his career. Back in 2006 while with the Detroit Lions, he lined up at receiver and caught two passes for 15 yards against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. NFL.com managed to put together some video highlighting that effort. It’s worth noting he had a third reception for 31 yards called back due to offensive pass interference. He still thinks the call is a little suspect.
Fantasy football analysis: Eagles WR Josh McCown
McCown likely won’t be qualifying as a wide receiver in most leagues, but if you can get creative, this is a guy who was a pretty dynamic athlete coming out of college. He’s 6’4 218 pounds and at his NFL Combine he ran a 4.59 40 yard dash. His numbers were actually quite impressive, ranking second best among quarterbacks in recorded history in the 20-yard shuttle, fifth best in the vertical jump, 20th best in the broad jump, and 29th best with his 40.
The only downside to this is he is now 40 and this all happened 17 years ago. He might still have some wheels, but unlike someone like Darrell Green, I doubt he’s running a faster 40 now than he did coming out of college.
We won’t see him starting in fantasy football lineups anytime soon, but we can always hope for a shot of McCown catching passes from Carson Wentz.