Malik Jackson has a Lisfranc injury and is going to be out for some time.

Today head ball coach Doug Pederson essentially confirmed Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport’s reporting, saying Jackson’s injury is “obviously significant…. There is a good chance he misses the season.”

Replacing Jackson on the roster is 27 year old Akeem Spence, a 4th round draft pick out of Illinois who previously played for the Buccaneers, Lions, and Dolphins.

Said Pederson of his new defensive tackle:

He’s a big guy. Physical. Matt Burke was with him in Miami. He can be disruptive. He definitely fills the need that we have there at that open spot. He will give us some really good minutes as a fourth tackle. But we’ll get him on the field today, get him caught up, see how he moves around, and fits into the scheme.

Pederson believe it’s realistic that Spence could play a role on Sunday night, despite the short week and lack of time to get himself up to speed. As it stands now, Tim Jernigan and Fletcher Cox are the starting tackles, while Hassan Ridgeway and Spence will round out the group. Doug says he feels like Jernigan is completely back from a health standpoint but still wants to be cautious with the Super Bowl winner.


“We’ve given him rest during camp and things like that to try to get him to this point, but I didn’t see any signs of in any kind of — whether it be a setback or recurrence of the injury on Sunday,” said Pederson of Jernigan. “He played well.
Spence, meantime, has played 16 games in five of his six NFL seasons. Last year he finished with 42 tackles, six for loss, and two sacks plus nine quarterback hits:

A couple of other notes and quotes from Doug’s midweek press conference, beginning with an interesting DeSean nugget:

Q. When you look at WR DeSean Jackson’s speed, I saw Next Gen Stats had him at almost 22 miles per hour. You obviously see it up close during practice and everything, but when you see it unveiled during a game, what’s that like? (Martin Frank)

DOUG PEDERSON: It’s a different speed. DeSean will tell you, he’s got practice speed and he’s got game speed. Practice speed is around 16 miles per hour and game speed is up to 22. He’s a gamer. He’s dynamic, he’s electric, and he loves when the lights come on. That speed is real, and we saw it Sunday. It’s something that we try to — as we game plan, and we put game plans together, it’s not always going to be deep threats, deep throws. We just happened to take advantage of some coverage situations Sunday. But he’s more than just a deep threat.

On sneaks:

Q. On Quarterback sneaks, what makes your offensive line effective on those? They do so well. (Les Bowen)

DOUG PEDERSON: It’s been a great play for us. One, we try to run behind [G] Brandon [Brooks], the right guard, right side. He’s powerful. He gets low, which is key in those situations. There is just such great surge. Kelce gets low, Isaac gets low. If we can get underneath their pad level and move them off their spots, and then Carson  being strong and powerful and long himself, to be able to stretch the ball — it’s a simple play conceptually, but sometimes can be very difficult from a standpoint of how they want to defend it.

I just think our guys — it’s a mindset. They’re powerful and they’ve done a good job.

For sure.

I’ll leave you with some Akeem Spence video:

https://youtu.be/X1u463KMKtg