Talkin’ Birds: Evaluating the Best Eagles ‘Hot Takes’ for the 2020 Season
The Eagles recently had their first padded practice of training camp, as the players were able to get their feet wet in terms of contact football for the first time since the playoff loss to the Seahawks back in January.
After a long off-season of virtual contact, players and coaches are finally allowed back into the Novacare Complex, in efforts to prepare for the 2020 season. During this time with reporters being allowed this has given us our first opportunity to take a look at Darius Slay in his first appearance in an Eagles uniform, how the young players are doing filling the role at the wide receiver position, and the chance to see Carson Wentz and Jalen Hurts in the same setting for the first time since Philadelphia selected Hurts in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
Obviously like every other team, the Eagles have their fair share of storylines taking stage as the public gains access to training camp. However, the folks here at Eagles Nation want to know which storyline interests you the most.
We allowed our fans to give us their Eagles “hot takes” heading into the 2020 season.
Here are a few of the best ones.
After a long-anticipated off-season of visioning what an offense that featured Carson Wentz and DeSean Jackson would look like, the dynamic duo provided us all of about five quarters of football over the course of a 16 game season. As Philadelphia watched Jackson sidelined for much of the season with an abdominal injury, they also watch any semblance of a deep threat leave right along with him.
Despite a valiant effort by an Eagles offensive unit that struggled last season with the receivers’ lack of separation created and just roster lacking overall speed, it is no secret that Philadelphia sorely missed Jackson from both a production and presence standpoint.
Now, as the Eagles head into this season, they will once again rely on Jackson to be a prominent role in this year’s offense.
Earlier in the off-season at an XFL event, he was attending, Jackson spoke about his recovery:
With his smaller stature, Jackson has been known to miss a few games here and there throughout the course of his career, Though this would be the first significant injury of Jackson’s career, as it cost him to miss over 10 games for the first time. Now at the age of 33, it will be interesting to see just how much Jackson has left in the tank.
It’s certainly a bold statement to say Jackson will play in at least 14 games (the most since 2017; first season in Tampa Bay), it sounds as if the NFL’s active leader in yards per catch understands that he has to continue to take care of his body.
“I think longevity is a thing in this league. A lot of guys aren’t able to make it where I’m at.”
If Jackson is able to return to form this upcoming season Carson Wentz should be able to do plenty of this.
http://twitter.com/hightowerburner/status/1295373260872458242?s=21
Remember when the cornerback position was a luxury for the Eagles? Of course, you’d have to go back a couple decades to the days where Bobby Taylor, Troy Vincent, Lito Sheppard, and Sheldon Brown were manning the outsides. Philadelphia has had a cornerback problem for years now, yet for some reason, the team decided to go with the band-aid approach which saw duos such as Mills/Darby, Fletcher/Willams, and McKelvin/Carroll unsuccessfully patrol any pass further than 15 yards. Though there are a few occasions where Philadelphia decided to spend big on the cornerback position.
There’s the signing of Asante Samuel in 2008, who is widely remembered as the last great cornerback to don the midnight green after spending four seasons in Philadelphia accounting for 23 interceptions and 64 passes deflected while playing in a 55 of a possible 56 games.
However, despite the success Samuel saw, the Eagles have seen every other high profile cornerback acquisition fall flat on their face. Nndamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodger-Cromartie, and Byron Maxwell anyone? Somewhere Julio Jones and Victor Cruz are collectively laughing as they reminisce over how the times they’ve torched this group of overpaid defensive backs.
This off-season the Eagles made a move to fortify the secondary and acquire a legitimate CB1; insert the man that leads the NFL in passes broken up since 2015 (82), three-time Pro Bowler Darius Slay. Of course with off-season hype comes off-season drama, which is certainly surrounding Slay as of late.
With the release of the one on one videos between receivers and defensive backs, Eagles fans have already begun to have nightmares that the ghost of cornerbacks past has struck again.
Wrong.
Keep calm Eagles Nation, remember that this hasn’t been your ordinary off-season due to the COVID-19 outbreak and even during an ordinary off-season receiver usually has the advantage at the start of camp in this types of drills. As Chad Johnson said, once Slay is able to get his feet under him, you will once again see the same All-Pro cornerback we hoped to see at the moment of acquisition.
It is highly possible for Slay to come away with five interceptions this season. With Slay matched up against the opponent’s top target weekly targets are sure to find him. Match that with the fact the Jim Schwartz loves to leave his cornerbacks on an island, and Slay will certainly have the chance to live up to his “Big Play Slay” mantra.
The chances start in week one as Slay will almost certainly be matched up against last year’s rookie standout Terry McLaurin, who Slay classified as the second hardest receiver to guard behind Keenan Allen of the Los Angeles Chargers.
While this certainly can be declared a hot take, this certainly isn’t out of this world. Philadelphia’s linebacker core could easily be considered to be the worst of the skilled position groups on the team. After the departure of both Nigel Bradham and Kamu Grugier-Hill, the Eagles now turn to Nathan Gerry, who is known to be a Jim Schwartz favorite despite missing 17.8% of his tackles.
Besides Gerry is scheduled to be Pro Football Focus darling, T.J. Edwards who posted an 83.4 overall grade on the 2019 season, although he only played 122 snaps on the year. After those two the only experienced player left on the roster is Duke Riley, who the Eagles acquired in a deal last September with the Falcons. Riley, who is primarily known as a special teams standout played only 37 snaps this past season. This leaves us with third-round selection Davion Taylor, sixth-round selection Shaun Bradley, and UDFA out of Montana Dante Olsen.
There has been a recently some buzz surrounding Davion Taylor and a few of the plays he’s made in practice. Many reporters seemed to praise Taylor as he showcased the speed and athleticism the Eagles valued. There was one play in particular where lightning-quick running back Adrian Killins ran a wheel route out of the backfield and Taylor was with him stride for stride breaking up the pass attempts. With everyone so high on Taylor early in camp, it begs the question how much of an impact could he have on the defense in his first season?
Well, Jim Schwartz has already tried to lower the expectation level for the young guys heading into the season.
“Linebacker and safety are two of the most difficult positions for guys to get up to speed. That’s including having a full offseason program for rookies, OTAs, minicamp, a full preseason schedule, and preseason games. So their learning has to be accelerated. [Taylor, Bradley, and Olson] are smart guys and have adapted well. Now it’s just a matter of accumulating as many reps as we can get, and when we do have those heavy contact practices, those are going to be very important in our evaluations. There’s no grading on the curve for this. It can’t be, ‘Well, it’s Week 7, a guy has to play,’ or ‘It’s Week 2, a guy has to play,’ or ‘It’s Week 16 and a guy has to play, and sorry but he didn’t have any training camp so we can’t expect much of him.’ Our job is to get those guys ready, and we have confidence in those guys. They’re working really hard and they’re really good athletes, and I feel good about their prospects.”
Boy would this be ironic, wouldn’t it? Imagine just a year after Carson Wentz became the first quarterback in league history to throw for over 4,000 yards without a single receiver having over 500 yards, Wentz would have two different wide receivers go over 1,000 yards. Based on the plan emphasizing the addition of speed to the roster, the Eagles certainly have a chance to do just that. If you ask Howie Roseman, Doug Pederson, or just about any Eagles fan, they will tell you that this Eagles receiving core is young but ready to succeed. Of course, the people want to know about the health of DeSean Jackson, who we touched on earlier.
The big story out of Philadelphia, however, is the addition of first-round pick Jalen Reagor, who with recent reports out of Eagles camp is said to look really good (in particularly on routes across the middle).
It is important that Wentz and Reagor develop some type of chemistry early and it sounds as if that may be the case, as the connection has been well and alive on the practice field and even off it as Wentz compared Reagor’s explosiveness to all-pro Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones.
Obviously, there are a couple hurdles that Reagor would have to go through to get over the 1,000-yard mark. First being grabbing the WR2 role alongside DeSean Jackson, recently the Eagles have rotated different looks at the wide receiver position in camp. The first few days saw Reagor and Jackson lined up as the first team-wide receivers, while the last few days the Eagles have J.J. Arcega-Whiteside who returned from a lower-body injury lined up on the other side of Jackson. Arcega-Whiteside’s struggles last season are widely known and the second-year man is looking to right his wrongs heading into this season. On top of Arcega-Whiteside’s presence, the looming presence of Alshon Jeffery, who is reported to have a big role on the offense upon return will stand tall until he is cleared from the PUP.
Still, the Eagles went into the off-season with an ideology behind how they wanted to mold their roster and Reagor could be considered the perfect fit. 1,000 yards however will be a tough feat for both guys as ESPN projects DeSean Jackson finish the season with 744 yards and four touchdowns on 47 receptions, while Reagor is projected to finish with 643 yards and five touchdowns on 51 receptions.
Had to get some clarification on the tweet he meant “K’Von Wallace will be the number one safety by week 10”
Highly possible! K’Von Wallace is of a different breed ladies and gentlemen. This isn’t your ordinary fourth-round pick, it’s not every day you see the 127th pick in the draft helping other players (not just rookies) get set in position before the snap. The race for snap distribution at the safety position will be something to watch not just during training camp but over the course of the entire season.
Defensive back coach Marquand Manuel has already declared Jalen Mills the “ultimate weapon” as he continues learning his move to safety.
While Will Parks is being lined up all over the place when the Eagles come out in their nickel and dime packages.
Wallace seems to fit the bill of what Philadelphia, specifically Jim Schwartz was looking for in a defensive back. Position-less football is what they call it. See Wallace, a three-year starter for the former national champion Clemson Tigers, is an extremely versatile player.
Remember all of the different ways that Schwartz deployed Malcolm Jenkins?
As a Blitzer, covering tight ends from the nickel, rotating from free safety to strong safety, well Wallace was used pretty much the exact same way during his time at Clemson.
This isn’t to say that Wallace will replace everything that Jenkins brought to the table and Wallace would tell you himself he isn’t trying to, he’s just very confident in his game.
“I’m a guy that likes competition. Wherever the competition is, that is where I want to be. If it is a quarterback that bombs it, I like being the high safety. If it is a running team, I like to be in the box. If it is a slot guy that is a dominant receiver, I like to be in man coverage on him. Wherever the competition is, that’s where I go.”
It would be far from a surprise to see Wallace snag the starting safety job by or even prior to week ten. During draft season, I try to thoroughly scout as many prospects as possible in efforts to gather as much information on who could be the next breakout star in the league.
It didn’t take long to realize that Wallace would be at or near the top of Eagles’ draft boards. It’s hard not to fall in love with his relentless competitive nature, his willingness to learn from mistakes and not make the same one again, and his intense desire to be great.
The Eagles are lucky to have what seems to be great depth among the secondary, it will be interesting to see how this storyline unfold as the season progresses but Wallace is certainly a name to keep an eye out for.
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