The Remaining Weaknesses of the 2019 Eagles Roster
The Eagles front office has been one of the busiest in the league this offseason. Going into the 2019 offseason, the Eagles had several needs to be filled across the roster including: Defensive Tackle, Offensive Tackle, Interior Offensive Line depth, Running Back, Wide Receiver, Linebacker, and Safety.
Despite these numerous needs across the offense and defense, Howie Roseman and Co. put Philadelphia fans at ease through his excellent free agent signings, draft picks and trades.
Although the major needs have been filled and most of those are now a strength of the roster, new holes have arisen throughout the 2019 Philadelphia Eagles Roster. The roster is one of the best in the league from top to bottom, but still has room to improve. If the Eagles plan to take the league by storm and make it to another Super Bowl, Howie Roseman would be smart to take a look at these weak points.
1) Defensive End
Photo: Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
As I mentioned in an article early in the offseason, the Eagles defensive line has quickly gone from a huge strength to a weak point of the roster. Although the line has been improved on the interior and moves have been made to solidify the ends of the line, the Defensive End position is the biggest need of the roster.
The team took two unfortunate blows to the Defensive End group this offseason as Michael Bennett was traded to the New England Patriots and after months of contemplation, Chris Long officially announced his retirement from football. The Eagles failed to prepare for these losses, both large contributors to the defense in 2018. There was a priority to re-sign veteran Brandon Graham before free agency hit, which sets up a starting duo of Brandon Graham and Derek Barnett. That is a strong pair of pass rushers, but the skill severely drops off from there.
Next in line is newly acquired Vinny Curry, a recovering Josh Sweat, and fourth-round draft pick Shareef Miller. Curry, the most proven rusher of the depth pieces, spent time in Philadelphia early in his career up until Super Bowl 52. The 2018 free agent decided to use his talent and newly printed ‘Super Bowl Champion’ resume to get a pay raise in Tampa Bay. With the Buccaneers, Curry did not live up to his $23M price tag as he only recorded 2.5 sacks and 21 tackles. Due to the lack of production and a full rebuild in Tampa, Curry was cut and found his way back to Philadelphia, where he belongs. The Eagles got Curry at a bargain, but will the production be the same as the 2017 Super Bowl run where he had 42 tackles? Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz seems to think so as he says that Curry “hasn’t missed a beat” and Curry reminisces on his time in Tampa Bay as “a long offseason”, showing that he is well rested and ready to produce for the Eagles.
Josh Sweat and Shareef Miller are both unproven but will be thrown into a position to succeed this season. Coming off of a serious leg injury, Sweat has the whole offseason to get healthy and work on ways to improve his game. Rookie Shareef Miller has raw talent and succeeded at Penn State, but will most likely need some time adjusting to the NFL. The depth is simply not there for the Eagles this upcoming season.
With Bennett and Long coming off the bench last season, the Eagles could rotate their linemen with ease and still expect non-stop production. There will be more pressure on Barnett and Graham this season as they will likely be expected to stay on the field longer and get extra pressure on the quarterback. The overall outlook of the defensive end position is decent, but depth wins championships, and no one should know this better than Eagles fans.
2) Special Teamer/ Return-Man
Photo: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
If Chip Kelly did one great deed for this organization, it was forming one of the best special teams’ units in the league. Since Doug Pederson took the reigns as head coach in 2016, the Eagles have improved as a whole, but special teams have been lacking. Going into 2019, this trend looks to continue. It does not help that Special Teams Ace Chris Maragos and Punt Returner Darren Sproles are no longer with the team. Who will be there to replace them? That is a question that even the coaching staff has yet to answer. Duce Staley admits that the Eagles do not know who will be returning punts for the team in 2019. Although Doug Pederson says that they would like to put Desean Jackson deep to return punts on occasion, it is not a good idea to make him the full-time punt returner because his health is important to the offense. With Corey Clement coming off of a knee injury, the battle seems to be between Boston Scott and other players fighting for a roster spot.
Having players such as Kamu Grugier-Hill, Andrew Sendejo and Malcolm Jenkins on special teams provide a skilled group of players on kick/punt coverage. What the Eagles are missing is a true Gunner or Special Teams Ace like Chris Maragos was for the team the past few seasons. Although Special Teams is often neglected, having a strong unit to put around Jake Elliott and Cam Johnston can not only prevent the opponent from gaining good field position but also possibly creating turnovers.
3) Safety Depth
Photo: Getty Images
Having Malcolm Jenkins and Rodney McLeod deep in the secondary once again creates a top safety duo in the NFL. Similar to the Defensive End group, the gap between the starters and backups is large. Andrew Sendejo, Blake Countess, and Tre Sullivan are all viable backups and will be excellent to plug into the secondary when need be. However, something that the Eagles need to plan for, after seeing how the past two seasons have gone, is injuries. If Jenkins or McLeod go down with an injury, these backups are not of starting quality. Between the three safeties, they combined for 8 games started in 2018. Luckily for the Eagles, if all three backups are rostered once Week 1 rolls around, they can rotate safeties if an injury occurs.
Once Rodney McLeod went down with a torn ACL in 2018, it was a game of trial and error at the second safety position beside Malcolm Jenkins. Unfortunately for the Eagles, injuries elsewhere in the defense pushed Jenkins across the field to linebacker and nickel cornerback. Now instead of having one hole to fill in the secondary, there were often two.
After many rumors of the Eagles being interested in safety in the 2019 draft, they walked away empty handed and failed to bring young talent to the secondary to not only plan for the future but also have a starting quality safety to rotate in and prepare for injury.
The safety position is by no means in a bad position, but there could have been more preparation in the event of an injury, or Jenkins is asked to be shifted elsewhere.
Featured Image: Winslow Townson/AP Images
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