Eagles news: Birds sign a veteran pass rusher, add wide receiver; up next are the Chiefs

The Eagles were missing interior lineman Jalen Carter Thursday night after he was ejected before the first play from scrimmage, and they became much easier to defend up front. The edge room was already pretty thin, and it looked like it Thursday night.

So on Friday, the Eagles added to their pass rushing depth, signing veteran defensive end Za’Darius Smith.

Smith, who turns 33 on Monday, was a free agent who played with Cleveland and Detroit last season, piling up nine sacks in 17 regular season games. The 10-year NFL veteran, who started his career in Baltimore as a fourth-round pick in 2015 out of Kentucky, has 69 sacks in 140 career regular season games and another four sacks in nine postseason games.

The Eagles have signed defensive end Za'Darius Smith and placed fullback Ben VanSumeren on injured reserve. VanSumeren was carted off the field after suffering a knee injury on the opening kickoff Thursday night.

The team is kicking the tires on the 32-year-old Smith, who was released by the Detroit Lions back in March and didn’t re-sign with another team.

Smith had nine combined sacks with two teams last season and has 69 total in his 10-year career.

The Eagles signed wide receiver Javon Baker to their practice squad Friday and released rookie edge rusher Antwaun Powell-Ryland.

Baker was a fourth-round pick out of Central Florida by the New England Patriots last season and played sparingly as a rookie. The Patriots released him prior to finalizing their initial 53-man roster.

Powell-Ryland, a sixth-round pick by the Eagles, had a quiet camp before breaking out in the preseason finale with a strong performance vs. the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. He was cut but landed on the practice squad.

Count Josh Shapiro among those who have some thoughts about the Jalen Carter spitting incident.

The Pennsylvania governor and outspoken Eagles fans called Carter's actions "disrespectful" to both the team and his coaches. But he also blamed Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott for using his own spit to provoke the Eagles defender.

“Dak spit first,” Shapiro said during an interview Friday morning on Jakib Sports’ Birds 365. “It doesn’t excuse Carter, but I just think there’s a double-standard there, and the Birds are constantly disrespected, and they don’t deserve it.”

Zack Baun was still sitting in front of his locker, still getting dressed, now pulling a white WISCONSIN T-shirt over his head when the Eagles staff member approached him and leaned down to say something.

“The play of the game was yours,” the staffer said. “You ran that mother[bleep]er down. That play saved us.”

Do you remember the play? It would be understandable if — amid the lightning and the thunder and the delay and the fights and the spitting and the total and complete strangeness of Eagles 24, Cowboys 20 — you had forgotten what Baun did with six minutes left in the third quarter Thursday night.

Jalen Hurts laughed when asked about Michael Jordan and the shrug.

He didn’t directly address whether he was trying to be like Mike when he raised his shoulders and held out his hands after his first touchdown. But the Eagles quarterback spoke about the significance of Jordan’s presence at Thursday night’s opener.

“Yeah, you have a special guest, a special friend in attendance,” Hurts said of the NBA legend, “there’s only one thing you can do and that’s win. So I have a lot of love for him.”

After raindrops (and thunderstorms) paused the Eagles’ home opener for an hour, drops plagued the Dallas Cowboys.

CeeDee Lamb’s dropped deep ball on fourth down just after the two-minute warning squashed the visitor’s attempt at a comeback, allowing the Eagles to protect their 24-20 lead until the buzzer.

The Eagles defense struggled early following the ejection of Jalen Carter and the unraveling of Adoree’ Jackson. But late in the third quarter, when the Cowboys, still down, 24-20, were at the Eagles’ 11-yard line, Jihaad Campbell punched the ball out of Miles Sanders’ hands, and Quinyon Mitchell scooped it up, reigniting the defensive effort.

Dak Prescott said he spits “a thousand times” each game and needed to find a place to do so before the opening snap of Thursday’s NFL opener at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback did not want to spit on his offensive linemen, so he looked over them and spit straight away, which happened to be in the direction of Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter.

Carter, the quarterback said, was standing about 12 feet away and shouting at Dallas rookie offensive lineman Tyler Booker when Prescott spit.

There is a school of thought that students learn more when utilizing a self-assessment rubric. So, at least keep that in mind when you hear that Adoree’ Jackson awarded himself a “C” when asked how he’d grade his first game as an Eagle.

We can also focus on his successful moments, such as when he did not spit on the opposing quarterback and get kicked out before the first snap. You can argue that Jackson earned his C grade by not being Jalen Carter, whose nationally televised loogying of Dak Prescott earned him an F grade that should stand alone. Of course, that still leaves D.

“Room for improvement, things that I can correct and get better at for the next week,” the veteran cornerback said after allowing at least 74 yards on a trio of first-half targets in the Eagles’ 24-20 win. “I’m not going to hang my head. ... There’s always things that I can get better at. So, yeah, I give myself a C. C’s get degrees. Because we won.”

After their weather-delayed win against the Cowboys, the Eagles get a few extra days to prepare for their Super Bowl rematch against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2 on Sept. 14.

The Chiefs are actually playing tonight, taking on the Los Angeles Chargers at Corinthians Arena, in São Paulo, Brazil, where the Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers last year.

The Chiefs-Chargers game is scheduled to kickoff at 8 p.m. Philly time, but you won't find it on TV. In an NFL first, the game is streaming exclusively on YouTube.