It’s very much a wait-and-see on whether Eagles starters will play in Friday’s preseason game in Baltimore

Ahead of the final Eagles practice of the week on Wednesday before their preseason-opening visit to the Baltimore Ravens, coach Nick Sirianni was unsurprisingly noncommittal about whether the starters will play.

“We’ll see,” Sirianni said simply when asked about the likelihood of starters seeing game action, deflecting from giving a definitive answer on a decision.

“You go through these practices,” Sirianni said. “You go through the week. We’ve had a good three [consecutive] days of practice. Looking to get our fourth one in here today. We’ve got to see what it’s like after this and how guys are feeling. They don’t particularly know exactly what we’re doing yet. So they deserve to know before anybody else.”

Sirianni’s track record with the Eagles suggests that starters seeing playing time in the preseason isn’t out of the question. In Sirianni’s first exhibition game at the helm in 2021, Jalen Hurts and the starting offense played the first two series against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In 2022, the group was on the field for the first series against the New York Jets, the Eagles’ first opponent of the preseason.

Last year, however, Hurts and the majority of the starters were held out of the preseason, as backups Marcus Mariota and Tanner McKee split most of the playing time with the second- and third-team offenses.

“Everything’s a little bit different based off of when you play, how many practices you’ve had before the game, all those different things,” Sirianni said. “So everything’s taken into account. You have some general philosophies of what you think. But you have general philosophies for a lot of things, but those are constantly changing and evolving.”

One factor that could impact the Eagles’ roster against the Ravens is the anticipated inclement weather in Baltimore. Steady rainfall from Tropical Storm Debby was in the evening forecast for Friday as of Wednesday afternoon.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Jalen Hurts addresses a report that he asked a rival coach for advice

Sirianni said that “everything’s always taken into account,” including the weather, when making decisions on playing time. If the ability to play the game is impacted, the league will contact the teams.

“We’re ready to go and go play,” Sirianni said. “And we’ll see what happens. Those are things that are out of our control. If they say we play, we play. If they say we don’t, we don’t. So we’ll see how it goes. We’ll monitor it. We’ll always get ready for wet weather games, the way we do some things in [the] walk-through. The way we do some things in practice. We did some things yesterday as far as our operation and kicking with the weather and with the ball.”

In 2022 when Hurts took snaps in a preseason game against the Jets, he was the victim of a late hit on the sixth play of the drive that drew a 15-yard penalty. Hurts still finished the drive, going 6-for-6 for 80 passing yards and one touchdown, good for a 158.3 passer rating.

Hurts doesn’t dwell on the risks associated with playing in a preseason game, acknowledging on Wednesday that what happened in 2022 was out of his control. If he is asked to play in Friday’s exhibition game, Hurts said he’ll “play with the right type of intensity and play my game,” but he doesn’t necessarily find it essential to his progress.

“I think it’s important for me to come out here and practice and really push the threshold in terms of where we are as an offense and where my game is,” Hurts said. “Just continue to have those talks and that dialogue with the coaches and [offensive coordinator] Kellen [Moore] and [quarterbacks coach] Doug [Nussmeier].

“So like I’ve said already, I trust Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie. I trust Howie [Roseman]. And I trust Nick to lead us in the right direction with all these different things. Just really focused on being the best player I can be, the best leader I can be right now.”

Josh Sweat and Brandon Graham differ from Hurts on their desire to play in the preseason. The pass rushers see the benefit of playing at least a couple of series, particularly as they get reacclimated to the speed of the game before Week 1.

Last week, Graham said he didn’t know what the playing time would look like for the starters against the Ravens, but he speculated that Vic Fangio, their new defensive coordinator, would want to see the group together in action at some point during the preseason.

“I always look forward to playing in the preseason games because, for me, it’s just getting my feet wet,” Graham said. “Getting that adrenaline rush normally for a game before you actually get to the game so you can kind of feel what that feels like. ... It’s different.

“As much as you plan and practice against these teams in the joint practices, it’s nothing like the game. So I think we’ll go back to the old-school way. I think Vic is the type of guy that would just want to see us all in action first to kind of get us in rhythm with each other.”

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