Hoverboards ‘exploding’ in popularity in Eagles’ locker room

It’s not uncommon to trek through the corridors of the Eagles’ practice facility, the NovaCare Complex, and have to dodge out of the way of Lane Johnson, or Malcolm Jenkins speedingby on a hoverboard.

With players working hard on the field, many players travel in the locker room with luxury on the team’s favorite mode of transportation.

“Malcolmstarted it,” Chip Kelly said.”I think he teaches a class on it.”

You’d think that a team with as many injury issues (the Eagles are hoping Sam Bradford and Zach Ertz can play Sunday against the Patriots while concussed Ryan Mathews has yet to practice in three weeks) would want to avoid the risk that comes from the futuristic, segway-likedevice. But Kelly is not worried.

“We haven’t had any injuries and it hasn’t been a big [issue] — but there are a lot of [the hover boards]. It’s a little bit like ‘Back to the Future’ with guys flying around the hallways here. If we had an injury, we would address it, but they have been doing it I think since back in preseason camp, maybe even back to [OTAs] and we have not had any [knocking on wood] hover board injuries.

“I don’t even know how you would put that on the injury report. Would you have to list that as hover board, Grade One or Grade Two? We haven’t had anything yet.”

However, issues are arising across the globe with the boards–which don’t actually hover.

In the UK, more than 15,000 of them were seized and deemed to be unsafe “due to a range of concerns, such as safety issues with the plug, cabling, charger, battery or the cut-off switch within the board, which often fails.” Many of the devices are actually feared to be an explosion risk.

Here’s hoping the Eagles continue tohave better luck “hovering” than they’ve had tossing the football around.