There’s a wide receiver on the Eagles who you probably haven’t heard of (unless you’re a fantasy football fanatic) who a few years ago caught 75 passes for 944 yards and five touchdowns for the Ravens.
Kamar Aiken worked his way up from nowhere to big-time producer in 2015, and now he’s trying to work his way back up from nowhere again.
Aiken is with his sixth team in eight years, trying to jump-start a once-promising career.
“I’m 29 now,” he said after practice Friday. “That’s young, but it’s like dog years in the NFL.”
All things being equal, NFL teams are always going to keep the younger guy around. Not only do they have a higher upside, they’re a lot cheaper.
So Aiken has his work cut out for him just to get an opportunity at this point in his career.
“It’s been frustrating, yeah, the last two years especially,” he said. “I feel like I’m in the right state of mind now. Getting back to my roots. Starting from scratch. Started all over. Started doing my workouts that I did in college. I feel like I needed to start all over.”
NFL
Aiken played a couple games with the Bills as a 22-year-old rookie in 2011 and one game with the Patriots in 2012 before spending some time on the Bears’ practice squad in 2013.
In 2014, he made the Ravens and played a little bit, then had a breakthrough in 2015 with that 75-for-944-5 season.
He dropped to 29 catches in 2016 and then caught just 15 passes with the Colts last year.
So he signed with the Eagles last week in what could be a last-ditch effort to extend his career.
He said he had some other offers. So why join a team that already has Alshon Jeffery, Nelson Agholor, Mike Wallace, Markus Wheaton, Mack Hollins, Shelton Gibson and Greg Ward?
“It is a talented group, but I wanted to be here,” he said. “I had opportunities to go to other places, but the most important thing for me was to win. I’ve been on teams that lose, and that’s not fun. Losing isn’t fun. I felt like football wasn’t fun anymore.
“I wanted to get back to somewhere where they win, where they instill the right culture, where they have good veteran leadership. I wanted to get back to that.”
Aiken, like Matt Jones, his Colts teammate last year, like Wheaton, like LaRoy Reynolds is a typical smart Howie Roseman signing.
He’s a guy who’s had success in the past. A guy who faces long odds just to make the team. A guy who counts nothing against the salary cap if he’s released.
High reward, low risk.
“Finding the right situation, that’s big,” he said. “Just being somewhere where I can fit in right away with the guys and you have the coaches who can put you in the right situation. That’s why I’m here.”
Aiken’s resume is intriguing.
He has 37 career catches of 15 yards or more, five catches of 30 yards or more.
Once upon a time, he was a legit NFL receiver. Now he’s got a month to prove he still is.
“My job here is to gain the trust of the guys and the coaches and earn a spot,” he said. “Just want to prove that I belong.
“They have something special going on here, and I want to be a part of it.”