It's been a long time since Miles Austin was an elite wide receiver in the NFL.
In 2009, he had a breakout season for the Dallas Cowboys, catching 81 passes for 1,320 and 11 touchdowns. He followed it up with 1,041 yards and seven touchdowns in 2010. But since then, Austin has registered more than 600 yards and played a full season only once.
Though he's not the WR he used to be, it doesn't mean Austin hasn't impressed Eagles coaches.
"He's had a really fine camp," Eagles offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur said. "He's missed a couple of days here, but he's a very veteran player. He was out here [Tuesday] again and running routes. He knows how to get open and I think that's one thing you can say for Miles."
The 31-year-old, who signed a $2.3 million contract in June ($1 million guaranteed), is fighting to make the team heading into the regular season. So far Austin has played in only one of two preseason games (two catches for 41 yards against the Colts), but Shurmur is still confident Austin could be a strong contributor.
"He had that one [bad] year in Dallas," Shurmur said, "But last year in Cleveland, I think he had one of his better years and we're trying to get the same thing from him this year."
That year in Dallas was in 2013, when Austin had 24 catches for 244 yards and no touchdowns and was plagued by hamstring injuries. He missed five games and was held without a reception in two others, bringing his eight-year Cowboys tenure to a close in disappointing fashion.
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But in Cleveland last season, Austin served mainly as a possession receiver and showed flashes of what he can bring to an offense at this point in his career. He collected 568 yards and two touchdowns in 12 games and became a leader for the Browns' young WRs, a role he could play in Philadelphia as well.
The Eagles also have a WR corps filled with young talent. The average age of the team's top three at the position (Jordan Matthews, Nelson Agholor and Josh Huff) isn't quite 23 years.
"He's a great teacher," Matthews said. "It's one thing to have great coaching — coaches can always tell you things — but it's another thing when a guy will tell you something and he can actually show you how to do it. That's huge. Having him out there is going to be a real big asset to us.
"I'm constantly pulling him to the side asking him what he thinks on certain routes, certain concepts, what would he do, what would he see right here, what would he think, and he's always giving me great feedback."
That veteran presence is something that will pay huge dividends for a second-year player like Matthews, and it's that much more beneficial for Agholor, the team's first-round pick.
"Every day we just talk about what happens out there," Agholor said. "He evaluates what he does and he evaluates what we do and vice versa. This is a great unit of wide receivers and we're blessed to have a veteran like Miles in that unit because he can put today's experiences and his past experiences as ways of learning."
But as much as Agholor and Matthews are learning from Austin, he's learning just as much from them.
"We're learning off each other each day," Austin said. "We got a great coach in [Bob Bicknell, wide receivers] and he's helping us all out. Whenever I have a thought or something that I feel like might add to the conversation, or whenever anyone has a thought that might add to the conversation, it's something we do in our receiver room. We talk about it and we just get better as a whole."
Not only does Austin bring leadership to the table, but he's also a very "crafty" route-runner as Matthews put it and he has good hands. His skill set is similar to former Eagle Jason Avant, who never made spectacular plays but could be relied on to make big catches in key spots.
The Eagles haven't really had that type of receiver on the team since Avant was released in 2014, and Austin could be a decent safety net for Bradford.
Because he's guaranteed the $1 million, it could make sense to keep him. But regardless of his role, Austin is doing everything he's asked during camp to try and earn a spot.
"My job is to really go in and do the job that they're asking me to do on each individual play depending on what that is," he said. "I'm sure there's some things that I might have thought I did well that maybe they didn't think I did well. Some things I didn't think I did well that they might want me to do. My job is just to go out and do my best whatever play it is."
