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Nelson Agholor is still in Philadelphia, and didn’t worry about rumors the Eagles would cut or trade him

After all the trade rumors and speculation, Agholor is still on the team. But that doesn't mean his future with the Eagles is any more certain.

“I know what kind of player I am,” Nelson Agholor says. “I know I’m going to work hard and try to get better every year, and I want to be here doing that.”
“I know what kind of player I am,” Nelson Agholor says. “I know I’m going to work hard and try to get better every year, and I want to be here doing that.”Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer

Nelson Agholor packed his locker in January with his Eagles future uncertain.

He was due $9.4 million in 2019, a salary that was set to become guaranteed in March, and that seemed like a hefty price for a player already behind Zach Ertz and Alshon Jeffery in the offensive pecking order.

It’s now May, and Agholor dresses in the same locker. The Eagles didn’t cut him before the league year commenced. They didn’t trade him before the draft.

He’s still on the team, and if there was any doubt about what the Eagles think of him, consider this: He has the fifth-highest salary-cap charge on the roster. The Eagles view Agholor as a key piece of the offense, just as they said whenever asked during the offseason. It apparently wasn’t a bluff, and it never worried Agholor.

“You have to think about it – what am I worried about? Am I worried about having a job in this league? Not at all,” Agholor said this week. “But I want to be an Eagle, and I’m here. At the end of the day, that’s for them to control and me to say, ‘Hey, look, I’m ready to play football for the Eagles and I’m ready to play football in general.’ ”

Agholor insisted there is “unfinished business” in Philadelphia, where he was a first-round pick in 2015, considered a bust in 2016, turned his career around in 2017, and even led the Eagles in receptions in the Super Bowl before a good-but-not-great 2018 campaign.

He finished with 64 catches for 736 yards and four touchdowns – a slight increase in receptions from his 62 in 2017, but 32 yards and four touchdowns shy of his 2017 output.

It was also notable that Agholor’s production dipped in the six games after the trade for Golden Tate, which affected his role. This was not lost on coach Doug Pederson, who is firmly in Agholor’s corner.

“Love this guy,” Pederson said earlier this offseason. “Can’t say enough good things about Nelson Agholor and what he’s brought to the table and what he will continue to bring.

"I think last year, you look at the amount of guys we had, and then we added Golden midseason. I’m not going to stand up here and say it didn’t affect Nelson. I think it did. …

"In this league, it’s a challenge [getting everybody the ball]. … And yet Nelson didn’t complain. He came to work every single day. He put in the time, he put in the work. He was a huge part of what we did.”

Agholor’s best production for the Eagles has come from the slot, a role that also suited Tate. The Eagles never seemed to figure out the right way to use both of them in November and early December, although Agholor did not want to rehash what happened. And his best game of the season came in Week 16, when he had five catches for 116 yards and a touchdown with Tate in the lineup.

“It’s in the past,” Agholor said. “It helped me by learning more positions. It put me in another position to continue to work on outside receiver, some ‘Z’, some ‘X.’ I did it earlier in my career.

"I got to go back out there with a new mindset, more development, more football under me. It was cool. At the end of the day, I don’t play one position. I play any position on the board out there, and that’s what I love about the game.”

Agholor insists he’s not purely a slot receiver, although that’s the role he’s likely to play this season with Jeffery on one side and DeSean Jackson on the other. He said he’s “going to play everywhere.”

And even if he sticks to the slot, his salary isn’t unreasonable considering what slot receivers such as Jamison Crowder, Adam Humphries, and Cole Beasley earned in free agency.

The Eagles must be creative with how they use personnel. Considering they’ll also have Ertz and Dallas Goedert prominently involved, Agholor will likely need to be flexible and might not play the 90 percent of offensive snaps that he took last season. He was on the field for 72 percent of the offensive snaps in 2017, and he played 76 percent of the offensive snaps when he led the Eagles with nine catches for 84 yards in the Super Bowl.

“I like playing the slot because it gives me an advantage, use my speed versus some guys and use my size versus some guys, and I’ve learned a lot playing in there,” Agholor said.

“But I’ve played a lot of outside receiver in my life. I know how to win on the outside, too, on ‘go’ balls, ‘post’ balls, things like that. And at the end of the day, I do whatever I need to do to help this team win. And I think my versatility puts us in a good position.”

The presence of Jackson should help Agholor, too, especially with occupying the attention of the deep safety. Agholor’s downfield ability was apparent in 2017, when defenses also needed to worry about Torrey Smith.

At least on the paper, this is the best collection of skill players the Eagles have had since Agholor arrived in 2015. And it’s notable that Agholor is a prominent player, given where he was earlier in his career.

Pederson sidelined Agholor for a week in 2016 after a loss to Seattle when he lined up incorrectly to negate a touchdown and later dropped a pass. It was the nadir of his career.

The conversation about Agholor is considerable differently now, and his perspective is different, too.

“I would say it comes down to my mindset and understanding how to adapt to certain situations,” Agholor said. “At times, it probably took me a little longer to figure out how people were playing me or understand what went wrong in a certain scenario in terms of a route running or a completion, if you drop the ball or you’re in the wrong position. It took me a little longer to realize that.

"Now, I’m able to adapt really quick. If I miss one, I most likely won’t miss another one because I feel like I understood what happened and I play really fast.”

There’s still much unknown about Agholor’s future with the Eagles. He’s a free agent after this season, and it’s never out of the question that the Eagles make a trade if they get a good offer. (It was the Eagles’ preseason trade of Jordan Matthews in 2017 that opened a spot for Agholor to excel.)

But like top executive Howie Roseman said when asked about trading Agholor during draft week, the Eagles view him as an important piece and they will need depth to advance deep into the postseason.

Whether that means Agholor packs up his locker for a final time after the season remains uncertain, just as it did last January.

“I know what kind of player I am,” Agholor said. “I know I’m going to work hard and try to get better every year, and I want to be here doing that.”