Paul Worrilow had a pretty good idea he was running out of time. Turned out he was right.
Worrilow, who suffered a knee injury on the first day of OTAs last spring, was released Sunday.
The veteran linebacker never played a regular-season or preseason snap in an Eagles uniform.
Worrilow tore his right ACL on May 18, 2018, missed all of last year, then missed a good chunk of training camp when he experienced swelling in the same knee.
He finally got back to practice last week, but didn’t play in the Jaguars preseason game.
The last game he played was the Lions’ 2017 finale against the Packers at Ford Field in Detroit.
People always say you don’t know when your last game is going to be, and that could be it for me," he told NBC Sports Philadelphia last week. "Hopefully not, but if it is, it is. You never know. That’s the cool thing about this sport, man. You’ve got to take advantage of it and appreciate it while you still can. I have no complaints. Went from no scholarship offers out of high school to trying to make it through my seventh year in the NFL.
NFL
Worrilow, 29, spent four years with the Falcons and one with the Lions before signing with the Eagles before last season.
Worrilow had hoped to use the Eagles’ depleted linebacker situation to his advantage, but he repeatedly experienced knee swelling when he tried to return to practice.
And with Nigel Bradham returning to practice on Sunday and appearing likely on track to play in the opener, the Eagles ended Worrilow’s comeback bid.
Worrilow was not heavily recruited out of Concord High in Wilmington, Delaware, and spent a redshirt year at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas before returning to Delaware and playing for the Blue Hens, where he was a first-team all-conference linebacker.
In the NFL, Worrilow played in 72 NFL games, starting 52. He has 415 tackles, four sacks, three forced fumbles, 11 pass knockdowns and two interceptions.
With Worrilow gone and Kamu Grugier-Hill out indefinitely with a knee sprain, the Eagles have Nate Gerry, Alex Singleton, Asantay Brown, Zach Brown, T.J. Edwards and L.J. Fort on the roster at linebacker in addition to Bradham.
Only Gerry, Bradham and Grugier-Hill were on the roster last year.
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