Eagles waive former CFL cornerback you’ve probably never heard of

Some VERY big news appeared on the Thursday version of the NFL’s official transaction report: the Philadelphia Eagles waived cornerback Elie Bouka.

Okay, so this isn’t actually big news at all. Chances are you’ve probably never even heard of this guy.

The Eagles originally signed Bouka to reserve/future contract in January 2018. Here’s what I wrote about him at the time:

Bouka is a new addition to the Eagles. The Laval, Quebec native attended the University of Calgary and was originally drafted by the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2016 before signing with the Arizona Cardinals as an undrafted rookie free agent. Injuries then derailed his NFL chances and he ended up back with the Roughriders.

Bouka is an interesting long shot guy. The 25-year-old measures in at 6-1, 205 pound and reportedly runs a 4.3 40-yard dash. He was relatively inexperienced — only playing 1.5 years of college ball — before turning pro. You can read more about him [here].

The Eagles already have a lot of young corners but it can’t hurt to take a flyer on Bouka.

The Eagles waived/injured Bouka in April 2018 and he reverted to Philadelphia’s injured reserve list. Instead of waiving Bouka off IR with an injury settlement, which would be the expected course of action, the Eagles keep him on IR all season long for some reason. When I’d post the Eagles’ injury report each week, people in the comments would often see Bouka among much more recognizable names (like Ronald Darby, Rodney McLeod, Jay Ajayi, etc.) and ask: “Who the hell is that?”

The truth is ... we’ll never know. Bouka is gone now.

For those wondering, the Eagles currently have 81 players under contract. 17 of those players are set to be unrestricted free agents when the new league year begins on March 13. One more player is set to be a restricted free agent and another player is set to be an exclusive-rights free agent.