Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette will miss his four straight game Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Fournette has been hobbled by a hamstring injury that has limited him to parts of two games this season. He was hurt in the season opener against the New York Giants and aggravated the injury in Week 4 against the New York Jets.
Because of the injury to Fournette, Jacksonville made a trade with the Cleveland Browns on Oct. 19, acquiring running back Carlos Hyde for a fifth-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
Hyde was inactive for last week’s loss to Houston but will make his Jaguars debut against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles at London’s Wembley Stadium.
The 6-foot, 229-pound Hyde was leading the Browns with 382 rushing yards and five touchdowns. He signed with Cleveland during the offseason as an unrestricted free agent.
A second-round pick of San Francisco in the 2014 NFL Draft, Hyde spent his first three seasons with the 49ers before signing with the Browns.
For his NFL career, Hyde has rushed 665 times for 2,731 yards (a 4.2-yard average) and 21 touchdowns, in addition to catching 109 passes for 634 yards and three more scores.
Fournette led the Jaguars in rushing with 1,040 yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games as a rookie in 2017, but the former No. 4 overall draft pick has been limited to 71 yards on 20 rushes this season.
There have been multiple reports out of Jacksonville suggesting that Fournette will be held out of the lineup through the team’s Week 9 bye to allow him to get healthy.
T.J. Yeldon, who started the past three games in place of Fournette, is expected to resume his role as the primary pass-catching back. Yeldon has rushed for 327 yards and a touchdown and also has 30 catches for 263 yards and four scores.
Jacksonville (3-4) has lost three straight games and is 1 1/2 games behind the first-place Houston Texans (5-3) in the AFC South.
