Just six months ago, Jordan Matthews went on a national radio show and blasted the Eagles' training staff for misdiagnosing a couple of his injuries before he was traded to the Bills.
Now he's an Eagle again … with a brand new training staff.
It's all an interesting sidebar to Matthews' return to the Eagles.
Matthews was traded to the Bills last summer in the deal that brought cornerback Ronald Darby to the Eagles.
But after playing in just 10 games and catching a career-low 25 passes for the Bills, Matthews' season ended and he underwent ankle and knee surgery for injuries that he later said were initially misdiagnosed by the Eagles' training staff.
Soon after the season ended, the Eagles replaced their entire training staff.
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Here's part of what Matthews said on Sirius XM NFL Radio in March, as reported by the Buffalo News:
"I had two really bad diagnoses on the knee and the ankle, so going into the trade, I thought they were both things that were going to heal on their own. But once I got around Buffalo's doctors … we ended up finding out there were other things that I was dealing with."
On Wednesday, after his first practice with the Eagles, Matthews said he felt articles about those comments misconstrued his meaning, and he said he called former Eagles trainer Chris Peduzzi - who stepped down in February - to explain them.
"When you get misdiagnosed, nobody does that on purpose, and I didn't like how that was kind of worded," he said. "It was a mistake, that's why it's called a misdiagnosis.
"I didn't say they lied. Things get seen wrong. Someone may look at an MRI and miss something and something was missed, that's all that happened, so when I went to Buffalo, they had doctors who saw it.
"I'm just not the type to go tweet about junk or anything like that. Once the story ran I called Peduzzi myself and let him know, ‘OK, look, I was not trying to make it seem like you guys did that on purpose.' It was an honest mistake. It was just what happened, it was unfortunate, but it was life."
Matthews eventually signed as a free agent with the Patriots, only to get released after he pulled a hamstring early in training camp.
He re-signed with the Eagles on Wednesday and said he would have come back to Philly even if the former training staff were still here.
"I think so," he said. "I've kind of moved on from it. It's just an opportunity to play football. In my situation right now, I just want to be able to go out and play football. Let's play ball. It wouldn't have mattered, all the other variables."
Matthews said he's 100 percent recovered from the hamstring injury and expects to play against the Colts Sunday.
