Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

The Safety Situation

Posted May 18th, 2023 | 1 Comment »

One of the few mystery spots on the Eagles loaded roster is safety. Both starters from last year are gone. The Eagles will replace them with a mixture of rookies, holdovers and free agents. That doesn’t sound encouraging, but I think the group has the potential to be better than some might expect.

  • Reed Blankenship
  • Terrell Edmunds
  • Sydney Brown
  • Justin Evans
  • K’Von Wallace
  • Tristin McCollum

Blankenship started four games last year and played well. He showed the ability to fly down hill and support the run. He was a good hitter and physical tackler. He had an impressive INT off Aaron Rodgers. Blankenship didn’t look like a rookie, let alone a UDFA. He was impressive.

Blankenship wasn’t just an athlete running around showing off speed. He wasn’t a box safety showing off physicality. He was smart and prepared. He was good in coverage. Blankenship was aggressive, trusting his eyes and then bursting to the ball, whether in coverage or against the run. He was confident. Compare that to K’Von Wallace and his first couple of years. He struggled to see things, make quick decisions and play fast. Blankenship did it right away and that’s very promising for his future. I’ll be surprised if he’s not a starter this year. I think he’s a player you want on the field.

Since none of the players is a sure thing, there will be competition for the starting roles and the #3 safety spot, which can be key in some looks.

Rookie Sydney Brown is a fascinating player. Howie Roseman referred to him as a “red star player” after the draft. That means he is someone the Eagles loved on and off the field. Brown picked off 6 passes as a senior (10 for his career). He then had a strong showing at the Senior Bowl and a great workout at the Combine. You can see why the Eagles would love him. Brown was a leader at Illinois and team captain. His coach, Brett Bielema, compared Brown to Bob Sanders, whom Bielema coached at Iowa. For those who don’t remember, Sanders was an undersized, explosive safety who was All Pro twice and was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2007. That’s one heck of a compliment.

Brown was a big time playmaker at Illinois and then he was fantastic in Mobile.

Here is what I wrote about him after the Combine:

Sydney Brown had a terrific season for Illinois, stood out at the Senior Bowl and then was great in Indy. What a year for him. He’s 5-11, 211 and is chiseled. Brown posted some great numbers.

40 – 4.47
10 – 1.51
Bench – 23 reps
Vertical – 40.5
Broad – 10’10”

Wow. That is one athletic dude. He can hit/tackle. Good cover skills. Good hands. He’s looked at as a mid-round guy by some. I see a guy who shouldn’t make it out of the 3rd round and could go in the 2nd.

One of the things you love about Brown is his energy. He flies around the field. He’s not reckless. Brown reads plays and then flies to the ball. He brings juice to the field, probably in practice and games. He can be a tone-setter. This is a guy you want running the back end of your defense. His energy can be infectious and you want that (as opposed to Jimmy Bama’s kind of infectious…but keep that our secret).

I get the feeling the Eagles will give Brown every chance to win a starting role. He’ll have to earn it, but they would love for him to carve out a role this year. Brown signed his contract on Thursday and will be ready to go.

Before the draft, the Eagles signed Terrell Edmunds to give them a safety with starting experience. He started 75 games during his five years in Pittsburgh and proved to be an effective starter. Edmunds is big at 6-1, 217. I think he’s better in the box than playing split safety. He would be ideal for the #3 safety in a Big Nickel look.

It certainly is possible that Edmunds will win a starting role. Coaches love experience on the back end of the defense. Coverage mistakes lead to big plays and/or TDs. Edmunds experience will make the coaches take a long look at him.

Justin Evans is the real wild card. He’s got 25 career starts, but also missed three years (2019-2021). He has the talent and athleticism to be a starting safety in the NFL. Injuries have been his biggest issue. Evans played in 15 games last year (four starts) and was a key role player for a Saints defense that was Top 10.

Evans is versatile. He looks comfortable playing deep or as a nickel. He showed playmaking ability as a rookie in 2017, picking off 3 passes.

He is intriguing. The key for him is to stay healthy. If he does that, he’s got a legit shot to make the roster and carve out a role.

Wallace has been disappointing in his time with the Eagles, but is coming off his best season. He showed promise last year so that might boost his confidence and help him to play well this summer. Wallace will have to fight just to earn a roster spot this year. Maybe that will bring out the best in him.

McCollum is more camp body than legit prospect, but he is a terrific athlete and is in the second year of his career so he’s got a bit of a feel for life in the NFL. We’ll see what he does.

I think the ideal situation would be Brown and Blankenship as the starting safeties and then Edmunds and Evans as key role players. Would the B & B Boys make the Eagles too young at safety? That’s possible, but I think having veteran DBs like Slay, Bradberry and Maddox around them would make that less of an issue. At the end of the day, you want your best players on the field.

Brown and Blankenship are both tough, physical players. They hit and tackle well. They attack the ball. Both have good hands and ball skills. They could form one heckuva safety tandem. Edmunds and Evans will both be hungry to have jobs so they’ll battle all spring and summer. Wallace should be desperate as well. We’ll see if that gets him to elevate his play.

The Eagles don’t have Wes Hopkins or Brian Dawkins or Malcolm Jenkins in the deep patrol, but they do have some talented players with interesting potential. It should be fun to see how things shake out on the back end of the defense.

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What If – Injury Edition

Posted May 16th, 2023 | 5 Comments »

There isn’t a pressing topic right now and I saw this on Twitter last night. It got me to think about a lot of players and situations.

https://twitter.com/markeithaha/status/1657963806620786688

Is there one Eagle who you go “What if he had stayed healthy?”

I can’t think of one great example. There are tons of guys in the sports world…Bo Jackson, Greg Cook, Grant Hill, Eric Lindros, etc. We still got to see flashes of greatness, but not what could have been.

The Eagle who fits this the best is probably Shawn Andrews. He was the first round pick in 2004 and earned the starting RG spot on a team that was loaded. He got hurt in the season opener and missed the rest of the year. Andrews started from 2005-2007 and was arguably the best RG in the NFL. He was an absolutely dominant run blocker, but still light on his feet and able to get out in space. He was a wall in pass pro. Andrews was special.

He only played in 2 games in 2008 and that was it for his time with the Eagles. Andrews played one season for the Giants a few years later. It is beyond frustrating to think that his final game as an Eagle came at age 25. He had 8 to 10 years of time left in his career.

Part of the issue is that Andrews didn’t love football. He played because he was big, athletic and liked the money. He was a big kid at heart and was more at home watching Spongebob Squarepants than studying game film. It seems cruel of the Football Gods to give that body and that ability to a guy who would rather play video games than knock the crap out of Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately, that’s what happened.

Interestingly, Andrews played RT at Arkansas. The man who lined up beside him was an odd TE named…Jason Peters. At least the Eagles got a decade of good play from one of those guys. It is crazy to think that Andrews and Peters were blocking side by side and ever had issues in college. They were a matchup nightmare.

*****

I’m sure some of you would bring up Randall Cunningham. He tore his ACL in 1991 and got hurt again in 1993. He was healthy in 1992, 1994 and 1995. He just didn’t play well enough in those years. He still had dynamic athleticism and an explosive arm. His issues were more mental than anything.

It probably also didn’t help that Rich Kotite was coaching him.

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Carson Wentz makes for an interesting discussion. He started 56 of 64 possible games between 2016-2019 so it feels weird to talk about injuries. But his torn ACL in 2017 cost him a shot at winning the Super Bowl. That injury had a transcendent effect. Wentz hasn’t been the same player ever since. Beyond just his play, the injury and Eagles winning the Super Bowl without him changed him. It sure felt like Wentz has spent the rest of his career competing with Nick Foles and the Super Bowl run.

I understand where Wentz is coming from. He was on his way to being NFL MVP. The Eagles were the best team in the league. Foles came in and was so-so in a few late starts and even the Falcons game before having a pair of epic performances in the NFC CG and Super Bowl. Wentz had a season of sustained excellence and that went out the door with a pair of Foles unbelievable games dominating the scene. How could that not affect you?

Wentz played well down the stretch in 2019 and seemed like he might be finding his own groove. Then he got hurt early in the playoff game vs Seattle and that basically did it for his Eagles career. He started 12 games in 2020, but wasn’t the same player. It doesn’t look like he’ll ever get back to that, but who knows.

If Carson had stayed healthy in 2017, there is no guarantee the Eagles would have won the Super Bowl. They would have been the best team and very well might have pulled it off, but you don’t know for sure. I do think Wentz would have been much better, on and off the field. He wouldn’t have been chasing the ghost of Foles and past glory. The injury might have done the Eagles a favor. It did lead to the team winning it all and then drafting Jalen Hurts.

*****

Really, the biggest thing for injuries and the Eagles is specific seasons/moments.

1991 – What if Randall stayed healthy all year? The Gang Green defense was special. The offense was highly erratic and used five QBs that year. Stability and playmaking ability from Cunningham would have made a huge difference. The Eagles would have made the playoffs and could have made a Super Bowl push.

1994 – The Eagles got off to a 7-2 start and then faced the Cleveland Browns. MLB Byron Evans suffered a brutal leg injury and missed the rest of the season. The Eagles didn’t win another game that year. They finished 7-9. If Evans stays healthy, the Eagles win some of those games and might have gone to the playoffs.

2002 – Donovan McNabb got hurt at midseason. He was replaced by Koy Detmer and AJ Feeley. The team finished 12-4 and was the top seed in the playoffs. McNabb came back for the postseason and played well enough in the win over the Falcons, but struggled in the title game loss to Tampa. That is one of the great defenses of all time. Maybe that’s the reason the Eagles couldn’t move the ball, but you wonder what would have happened if McNabb had been completely healthy and had played all year.

2003 – Brian Westbrook got hurt in the season finale and missed the postseason. The Eagles lost the NFC title game to Carolina 14-3. No way they score only a FG if Westbrook was healthy. The Eagles scored 25 points on the Panthers in November and Westbrook had 96 total yards in that game. I don’t know if the Eagles would have won that game, but it would have been different.

2004 – The Eagles made the Super Bowl, but you wonder how things might have been if Andrews didn’t get hurt in the season opener and then TO in December. Andrews absence affected the running game against stout defenses. TO’s injury opened a can of worms that led to one of the most bizarre situations in league history. His meltdown in 2005 and constant trashing of Donovan McNabb affected the franchise for years.

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All Injured Eagles Team

QB Randall Cunningham
FB Thomas Tapeh
RB Correll Buckhalter
WR Chris T. Jones
WR Mack Hollins
TE Cornelius Ingram
OL Andre Dillard
OL Shawn Andrews
OL Scott Young
OL Adrien Clarke
OL Eric Floyd

DE Jerome McDougle
DT Andy Harmon
DT Sam Rayburn
DE Derrick Burgess
LB Ray Farmer
LB Byron Evans
LB Stewart Bradley
S Earl Wolff
S JR Reed
CB Ben Smith
CB Sidney Jones

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