Eagles Waive Safety Earl Wolff

The Eagles have waived/injured safety Earl Wolff, according to sources.

Wolff has been dealing with right knee issues since first sustaining the injury back in 2013.  He had microfracture surgery to address the problem in November and was a participant for much of the summer. But the pain resurfaced last week, forcing him to sit out the exhibition opener against the Colts.

“He says he can’t run with his knee,” Chip Kelly said Tuesday.

The 25-year-old recently visited Dr. James Andrews. One source suggested he had surgery, though that has not been confirmed to this point. [Update: Wolff tweeted that he had surgery Thursday.]

The Eagles declined comment.

Wolff was selected in the fifth round of the 2013 draft and showed promise as a rookie, accruing 45 tackles, an interception and four passes defensed in his first 10 games. However, he sustained a knee injury against the Packers in November and played very little the rest of the way. He appeared in just seven games last season before opting for surgery in November.

“I don’t look at it as frustrating.  I think for Earl, it’s frustrating.  For us, we just have to make evaluations based upon how they’re presented,” said Kelly when asked about the safety this week. “It’s the same thing with Travis Long.  We had tremendous hope for Travis.  I feel bad for the player.  But the only thing we can do is evaluate who’s available to you.

“I think that’s the hard part.  There’s that part of how much you care about the individual player, and it’s tough.  But you still have to move on.  We still have to be able to find eight or nine DBs that are ready to play when we go play the Atlanta Falcons.  I hope Earl is healthy and is in that mix, but you never know.”

Malcolm Jenkins and Walter Thurmond are the projected starting safeties for 2015. Chris Maragos, Ed Reynolds, Chris Prosinski and Jerome Couplin are the current reserves.

“It’s all bunched up still,” said Bill Davis, when asked who he likes as the No. 3 safety. “There is not a guy that’s really separating himself.  They’re actually all encouraging the way they’ve played.”

Here’s an explanation of the waived/injured designation, via National Football Post.

When a team waives an injured player any other team may claim him. If a player clears waivers the player is immediately reverted to IR or the team will negotiate an injury settlement to allow the player to pursue other opportunities with another club.

Kelly was asked early this week about what goes into the decision to waive/injure a player.

“Yeah, it’s just what do you think is going to happen? Is anybody else going to pick him up? Does he revert back to you? It’s really just when you expose him, is someone going to grab him and if you’re afraid someone is going to grab him, sometimes you don’t do it,” he said. “That’s what you worry about, losing that player.  But if you waive him injured and he clears waivers, he can revert back to a team.”