Eagles injury updates on Ronald Darby, Sidney Jones, and Tim Jernigan

The Philadelphia Eagles are 8-1 entering their Week 10 bye. It’s time for players to rest up and get ready for the final seven remaining regular season games.

The good news for the Eagles is that reinforcements appear to be on the way for the final stretch run. Here’s an update on the team’s injury situation.

RONALD DARBY

Darby has been out since suffering a dislocated ankle injury in Week 1. He returned to practice leading up to the Eagles’ Week 7 game but he’s been limited in practice ever since. Now it seems like Darby will be able to return after the bye and play against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 11. He essentially indicated as much on Twitter.

Les Bowen of the Daily News confirmed the good news.

Here’s what Doug Pederson had to say about Darby on Monday.

Q. What is the plan for CB Ronald Darby when you guys get back? Do you anticipate him going full for that week or is it still a wait and see?

DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, he's really -- last week, he really got more reps in practice, and even though it was limited, it was almost full last week too. He's another one that will be around, working on his treatment and his rehab, and we'll see where we're at next week when they get back. We'll evaluate it some more. But he's in a really good spot to possibly come back and help us here in the next week or so.

With Darby out, the Eagles have relied upon the trio of Jalen Mills, Patrick Robinson, and rookie Rasul Douglas at cornerback. Robinson has been having a strong season playing both the slot and the outside. Mills has his flaws but he’s battled all year and was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for his outing against the 49ers. After being a healthy scratch in Week 1, Douglas has shown some nice flashes while playing in a rotational role.

It remains to be seen, then, how the Eagles will split playing time at corner with Darby set to return. I’d think we’ll see more of Robinson in the slot and less on the outside. I’d also think Douglas will get less playing time since the Eagles really like Mills.

In any case, having too much talent at corner is a great “problem” to have.

Darby looked pretty good in training camp and the preseason so his return could make the Eagles’ defense even better.

SIDNEY JONES

The Eagles haven’t released an official update on Jones, but here’s an interesting note from Zach Berman.

It was previously reported that the Eagles had six weeks from Week 7 to have Jones either return to practice or be shut down for the year. Now it appears the Eagles have all season to make a decision on Jones.

As Berman points out, the Eagles will still have 21 days from the time Jones first practices to either activate Jones to the roster or keep him on the non-football injury list.

Based on the latest Jones update, it sounds like he might be ready to return to the practice until December. The Eagles (surprisingly) already have some good options at corner, so it’s not like Philly needs to rush him back.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Eagles handle the Jones situation.

TIM JERNIGAN

Jernigan got banged up late in the Eagles-Broncos game and had to leave early. Pederson said the team’s starting defensive tackle be fine for the Dallas game.

Tim's fine. He's just got an ankle. He could have come back and played in that game yesterday, and he'll be fine. We've got this time off now, so he'll be fine next week.

ZACH ERTZ

Pederson originally said he expected Ertz to play against the Broncos on Sunday but the team shut him down after the starting tight end struggled with a hamstring injury in warmups.

Yeah, he tried to go on his leg there, and just didn't feel right. So, made the decision with seven games remaining, having a bye, and really a couple weeks here to rest; just made the decision that we need him more for the long term than this game and just decided to keep him out.

If Ertz was close to playing on Sunday, I’d have to think he’ll be ready to play against the Cowboys after having a week to rest his hamstring. Good news for an Eagles offense that still played great without him.