Bryce Huff Injury Has Load Management Taking Center Stage For Eagles

The Eagles will need to have rookie Jalyx Hunt step up and take some of the workload off Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham and Nolan Smith.

Eagles Edge Rusher Jalyx Hunt / Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

PHILADELPHIA - Attrition always plays a strong hand in any NFL season and the Eagles’ latest impressive start can be tied to the relative health of the roster.

Philadelphia has had some significant absences with players like A.J. Brown, Dallas Goedert and Jordan Mailata but they’ve been short-term. Meanwhile, all 53 available players on the active roster have been at Nick Sirianni’s disposal over the past two weeks, which is rare this late into the season.

The worm turned a bit when sources revealed that edge rusher Bryce Huff would be undergoing surgery Thursday to repair a troublesome left wrist injury suffered in pre-game warmups against Jacksonville on Nov. 3.

Huff was limited to a cursory six snaps against the Jags and tried to fight through the injury while playing with a cast over the past two games, toiling in 12 snaps at Dallas on Nov. 13 and 14 against Washington last Thursday night.

The move toward surgery is with the intent of getting Huff back before the end of the season with more functionality to his game.

While a disappointed so fat after signing a three-year, $51 million contract as a free agent in the offseason, Huff is still needed as an important cog in the rotation on the edge.  

Rookie third-round pick Jalyx Hunt is expected to see an uptick in playing time during Huff’s absence as the fourth man behind Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, and Nolan Smith.

With Huff likely headed to injured reserve before Sunday night’s game at the Los Angeles Rams, the Eagles would have a roster spot to fill.

The only edge rushers in house on the practice squad are the recently returned Tarron Jackson and David Anenih, a 6-foot-2, 245-pound prospect signed on Sept. 18 who has been trying to catch one since entering the league as an undrafted free agent out of Houston in 2022 with stops in Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Arizona, and Miami before landing with the Eagles.

While Sweat and Graham have been playing at a high level this season Smith has made noticeable strides in Year 2, the position all of a sudden looks light as a whole.

Even though Huff has been widely panned as a disappointment when measured against his expected role of replacing Haason Reddick, his snaps were generally viewed as valuable during the Eagles’ six-game winning streak and he's been ranked No. 45 of the 114 edges who've played enough to be placed by Pro Football Focus.

Assuming you can just split the reps among Sweat, Graham, and Smith could prove problematic because Sweat wore down late last season with an uptick in playing time, Graham is 36, and Smith is undersized and has never handled a major workload before.

“We kinda focus on everything,” Sirianni said when asked by Philadelphia Eagles On SI about an added workload for Sweat and Graham particularly. “... The last couple games they’ve played in a sweet spot that we anticipate them playing but that fluctuates week in and week out depending on how the game’s going, doing what we need to do to win the game.”

So-called load management is done during the week.

“The management that you do with your players is done more Wednesday, Thursday, Friday [at practice] and then you do what you got to do to win the game,” Sirianni explained.

On game days a plan exists but it’s always a malleable one to get to the finish line.

“Don’t think that’s not on our mind on Sunday, it is and we’ll do it as much as we possibly can on Sunday,” Sirianni said. “But that number of plays, touches, you go in with a number in mind. You try to hit within five of that. Sometimes it’s five higher, sometimes it’s five lower. That’s the way it goes.

“... Yes you’re trying to have rotations to keep guys fresh throughout the year but we owe it to ourselves, the team, and our fans and everybody to do everything we need to do to win the game.”

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