EAGLES ROSTER ANALYSIS: Wide Receiver

The team will add at least two pass catchers, and likely three, via the draft and free agency. Here's a look at what they could do at a most depleted position:

Nothing has changed with the Eagles wide receiver group since the season ended in early January.

Alshon Jeffery is still on the team and Nelson Agholor still does not have a contract to return.

There is plenty of speculation regarding Jeffery, and whether he will be back despite an albatross of a contract that was restructured last offseason in order to give the Eagles more flexibility under the salary cap.

The guess here is the Eagles will try to trade him, find no takers due to a down seasson and the fact that he is coming off surgery and may not be ready to start the season.

That being said, the team will absorb the mammoth cap hit and release Jeffery.

As for Agholor, his next contract will come with another team. The Eagles haven’t shown any interest in bringing back their 2015 first round draft pick.

That leaves the Eagles with plenty of work to do at this position.

They finished last season with just three receivers on the depth chart: Greg Ward, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, and Deontay Burnett. Not exactly the way the Eagles drew it up to begin the 2019 season, but that’s where they ended up.

DeSean Jackson is really the only one of last year’s preseason Big Three whose chances are better that 50-50 of returning.

My guess is he will be back.

Ward proved himself to be a roster keeper, but Arcega-Whiteside needs to take a giant step forward to show that the Eagles didn’t wildly miscalculate taking him in the second round of last spring’s draft.

There has yet to be a pre-free agency mock draft that doesn’t have the Eagles taking a receiver in the first round at pick No. 21.

It’s clear that the Eagles need a receiver and even clearer that they need one with speed.

Jackson gives them that deep threat, but the 33-year-old hasn’t played a full 16-game season since 2013, which was also the year he set a career high in receiving yards (1,332) and tied a career high in touchdowns (nine, which he also had in 2009 when he played 15 games).

Jackson has had just two 1,000-plus yard receiving seasons since 2013 and the last one came four years ago in Washington when he had 1,005.

The declining production, age, and injury history are three very good reasons why the Eagles need to find someone ready to step in for Jackson when (not if) he gets hurt again and for when the day comes that the Eagles decide to part ways with a player who signed a three-year, $30 million contract last offseason.

The Eagles cannot limit themselves to adding only one receiver, either.

If they spend their first pick in the draft on one, they shouldn’t stop there. Draft another one.

In all, the Eagles need at least three receivers to breathe life into the position and give quarterback Carson Wentz the weapons he needs to continue his upward trajectory.

Start the process in free agency.

Amari Cooper’s name has been floated, but there’s no way he’s getting out of Dallas after the Cowboys send a number one draft pick away to acquire him two years ago. Dallas will likely use a transition tag on Cooper. The first day NFL teams can designate players for the franchise and/or transition tags is Feb. 25.

The Jets’ Robby Anderson and Chiefs’ DeMarcus Robinson are two names that keep coming up. Both spring speed and are young enough to grow with Wentz; Anderson at 26, Robinson 25.

I would put the Eagles chances at 80 percent of signing either Anderson or Robinson.

As for the draft, the good news is this year’s group of receivers is considered the best group to come out in a long time. The prospects will be on display next week, when the NFL Scouting Combine begins. The receivers will work out on Feb. 27.

Everyone should know the names of those available, especially the big three of Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs, and CeeDee Lamb.

The run on them probably begins at No. 12, where the Oakland Raiders will likely grab one.

Will one of the other two still be there when it’s the Eagles’ turn on the clock at 21?

Will they need to trade up into the upper teens if one of them is still tantalizing close to possibly being theirs?

Two good questions, with an answer getting closer but is still more than two months away when the NFL Draft begins on April 23.