Nick Piccone
A bit of a gamble for Doug Pederson starting a rookie for the second straight game who struggled mightily in his first start, but the Eagles’ head coach doubled down on Vaitai starting Sunday against the 5-0 Minnesota Vikings at The Linc. Pederson announced today during his press conference that there’s enough confidence in Vaitai to put him in there again, against the league-leading 12.9 points per game allowed Vikings defense.
Hopefully we’ll see some improvement out of the rookie, but against that Minnesota defense, they’re going to have to get him some help on the right side. Have to. Just a few weeks ago, Pederson praised Vaitai and said he didn’t want to make a decision with Johnson’s suspension that would disrupt two positions.
“It is true,” Pederson said. “Talking with [offensive line] coach [Jeff] Stoutland and watching Big V closely not only through preseason, but in practices these last couple of weeks — we want to exhaust all of the possibilities. Allen Barbre has been playing great at left guard, and if you don’t have to disrupt two positions and just do one, I think there’s some conversation there that we got to have. But yeah, he’s definitely in the mix.”
So Carson Wentz will live and die with Vaitai.