Andre Dillard faces another setback in LT battle with knee injury

Left tackle Andre Dillard has suffered a knee sprain over at Philadelphia Eagles training camp and it’s the latest setback for the young lineman. 

Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Andre Dillard has been battling plenty of adversity to start off his career and things have only been made tougher this week. Dillard, who limped off the practice field on Tuesday, has been diagnosed with a knee sprain.

Moving forward, he’s considered week-to-week, but this only lowers his chances of winning the starting left tackle job for Week 1. Jordan Mailata had been impressing at camp too, appearing to have the edge in the battle. Now, he’ll only further himself in that race with Dillard sidelined.

Andre Dillard’s latest injury is rough news for the Eagles

Unfortunately for Dillard, the former Washington State standout can’t seem to catch a break. After appearing in 16 games as a rookie in 2019, starting four of them, Dillard suffered a biceps injury ahead of the 2020 campaign and had to miss the entire season.

After turning heads during minicamp, Dillard had his eyes on protecting Jalen Hurts’ blindside at left tackle. At camp, however, Mailata indeed has looked sharp and was really starting to separate himself from Dillard.

Now that Dillard is dealing with his knee sprain, Mailata will continue to get the majority of the work with the first-team offense. For the team’s first preseason game of the year, Hurts is ready to start and he’ll hope to put on a show for first-year head coach Nick Sirianni.

At left tackle, Mailata can make quite the statement if he has a strong showing under his new head coach. Meanwhile for Dillard, he won’t be able to suit up and will have to wait a bit to try and get himself back into the mix of things.