The Eagles are no longer the only team that hasn’t signed a free agent. It finally happened about two hours after the NFL’s new league year began on Wednesday when they signed former Green Bay Packers running back AJ Dillon to a one-year deal.
It’s the kind of deal general manager Howie Roseman will likely explore more as free agency rolls on, the kind where a player coming off injury might be willing to try to rehab his playing career after an injury derailed it.
Dillion, who will turn 27 in May, missed last season due to a neck injury. He suffered a cervical neck stinger in Week 17 of the 2023 season, but the Packers tendered him anyway, despite the belief that the injury could jeopardize his career. According to NFL Media, the running back has received clearance to play from the country’s top neck specialists.
Dillon is being brough in to compete with last year’ fourth-round draft pick, Will Shipley, and perhaps some others such as Ty Davis-Price to be Saquon Barkley’s backup. The Eagles are expected to lose Kenny Gainwell to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Barkley had nearly 500 touches last season between running the ball and catching it. Another year of that sort of workload for the 28-year-running back would probably not help him reach the end of the two-year contract extension that he signed last week that is expected to keep him around until he turns 32.
If healthy, Dillon is a battering ram. He is 6-feet, 247 pounds and was a second-round pick of the Packers in in 2020 out of Boston College.
He played 60 games for the Packers over four seasons, carrying the ball 597 times for 2,428 yards and an average of 4.1 yards per rush. Dillon scored 16 touchdowns. He also showed ability to catch the ball out of the backfield, something Gainwell excelled in doing. Dillon had 86 catches in four years for 763 yards and two TDs in Green Bay.
