Whether or not the Eagles pay an on-field price for cutting DeSean Jackson, Chip Kelly's decision to move on from the three-time Pro Bowl wideout sent a crystal clear message to his locker room.
"The whole DeSean Jackson thing, that helped out, to be honest, in making all the other guys aware," running back LeSean McCoy told NFL Media's Albert Breer last Monday. "It's all possible. They'll cut one of your best guys if (he's) not buying in. On any team -- any team -- you look at that, and as a player, you can look at it from so many different sides, but no matter how good you are, you gotta follow these guidelines. And if you don't, you could be gone."
Said LeSean: "You gotta buy in."
As for masking over Jackson's lost production, Kelly said in April that Philly's remaining pass-catchers would "be all right" without DeSean.
We tend to agree. The return of Jeremy Maclin, the drafting of Jordan Matthews and the likely emergence of second-year tight end Zach Ertz will help. It won't be easy to replace Jackson's 26 catches of 20-plus yards, but the Eagles piled up a whopping 80 of those plays as a team, 14 more than Peyton Manning's high-flying Broncos.
Kelly -- bank on this -- has something up his sleeve.
You can read the rest of Breer's writeup on Kelly and the Eagles right here.
In the latest edition of the "Around The League Podcast," the heroes talk "Hard Knocks" before delving into a new batch of rookie whispers.
