Everyone and their mother knew that Philadelphia Eagles defense needed to be the main focus to getting this team pointed in the right direction so Chip Kelly and the Eagles brass went forward with a somewhat different strategy than before. No big names but sound football players with the potential to be big.
Free Agency hopefully took care of the biggest team deficiency of 2012 which most will agree was the secondary. Last year’s woeful quartet gave up an astounding 52 plays of 20 yards or more and 11 plays of 40 or more yards along with a league leading 33 touchdowns to rank 24th against the pass. To add insult to injury, opposing teams posted a 60.2 completion percentage and a passer rating of 99.6. The Eagles had only 8 interceptions as an entire unit and only 4 coming from the “elite” duo of Nnamdi Asomugha (1) and Dominique Rogers-Cromartie (3).
So, to The Linc comes safeties Patrick Chung from New England and Kenny Phillips from the Giants along with corner Cary Williams from Baltimore instantly making the defensive backfield bigger and stronger if not solid. Add Bradley Fletcher from the Rams who battled injury but had good stats in St. Louis and is going to be a big surprise.
With any new group though, chemistry and cohesiveness is a key factor. Injury is another. Kenny Phillips is the biggest name and perhaps the best player “IF” he is healthy and can stay that way. Nate Allen and Kurt Coleman for the most part have been disappointing but will be given the chance to compete for a spot on the roster. But let’s not forget Colt Anderson who is a key to Special Teams success and 5th Round Draft Pick Earl Wolff who just might surprise some folks.
We had high hopes the last couple of years expecting Nnamdi and DRC to pay off on the corners but they just never did. Defensive backs Curtis Marsh and Brandon Hughes are not “Kelly’s guys” but will get a look while one of my favorites from the 2010 Draft, Trevard Lindley, whether due to lack of reps or lack of ability hasn’t been able to get significant playing time since he came into the league as a 4th rounder. All three may not make the cut this season. (There’s also Practice Squad body Eddie Whitley).
However, Brandon Boykin will make significant strides as a nickel and may even challenge for a starting corner spot. Last but not least, look for 7th round pick Jordan Poyer – a physical DB who will stick you – to turn some heads as a nickel back. Poyer did some kick/punt returns at Oregon State but his 4.54 40 won’t get it done as a return man in Philly.
So that is the Philadelphia Eagles secondary, a new breed of Eagles who just might help to bring the “Nasty” back to South Philly but has certainly upgraded what was a sagging defensive backfield. Coach Kelly may not be quite done yet as far as bringing in talent so there may still be more moves.
Mediocrity, ????’s, if’s, &’s, but’s, mediocrity, & ????’s. That’s all our entire secondary is. They’re still the weakness of this defense. We accomplished nothing in the draft, to shore up the secondary, & signed nothing but rotation & special team players in FA. PERIOD! We still have ZERO play-makers on DF.
Maybe so. However we got rid of the finger pointer and the Down Right Chump. Maybe a few hungry guys competing is what the secondary needed. We need to draft and groom our own playmakers.
Replaced garbage, with garbage with air freshener inside the bag. That’s all it is!
Cary Williams and Jordan Poyer will be the starting corners. Poyer is a stud. Dude flys around the ball and loves to hit people
No he is not DMAN………
Jordan Poyer, is a nickel corner exclusively. There is more than his bar fight that dropped his stock. Actually he really isn’t that good, and absolutely, not as good as most claim him to be……….
Poyer has had Coachability & Overall Maturtiry Issues as a Youngster since his High School & COllege DAys per Sources who have covered him… Has always had the Talent, but not the right attitufde or focus have been his biggest Issues per most people familiar with him…
He’s a 7th Round Pick, little expectations here on my end to be relaistic. If the 7th Rd Selections (Poyer,Kruger & King) even make the Roster as Special Team Demons and Quality Back-ups for their Rookie Seasons, then good for them and quite an achievement…
I am afraid the 7th Round Prospects and Selections were better than the 3rd & 5th Round Selections (Logan & Wolff) .. Just Sayin’..
Wasn’t too much on the market for corners. ya they sorda went cheap in free agency on corners, but i would have done the same. Asmo put a bad taste in the Eagles mouths.
Wasn’t too much on the market for corners??? I guess Sean Smith, Aquib Talib, Brent Grimes, Derek Cox, Keenan Lewis, & Chris Houston, aren’t too much, HUH? ALL are better than the failures we signed. Williams gets 3rd degree burns & Fletcher is a rotational CB. WTF are you taking about?!? You don’t have a clue. Please stop! BTW, Goldson, Quin, Delmas, Landry & Huff, would have been better fits & upgrades, over the junk we signed at Safety. Chung lost his job, & Phillips is more fragile than paper mache! GTFO!
They dumpster dove, & added NOTHING via the draft! Expect the secondary, to be just as bad as the last 3-4 years! Bank on it!
I hear you DCar they better be a solid unit because they don’t have one game changer on the defensive side of the ball.
Fletcher, Williams , Allen and Phillips will start with Boykin at the nickel. Poyer has a chance to be a good one if the speed of the pro game doesn’t overwhelm him. I don’t know about Chung, he struggled the last couple of years and Williams scares me he gets beat and gets called for PI too much.
Fletcher, and Allen stink……….
Well we are in trouble cliff because Fletcher is better then Williams and I’m hoping Allen finally understands his time is almost done here and he needs to flash that talent that got him drafted in round 2. Oh yea he needs to lose that aversion to contact as well. LOL
Biggie if Fletcher were better than Williams, he would have played for the lowly Rams. He was PURPOSELY, left on the bench because Jeff Fisher could tell that this guy was extremely limited.
Williams has more skill than Fletcher. Most guys, and Howie are HOPING, this guy can get back to what he was hyped to be coming out of college after two knee surgeries……..C’mon stop kidding yourselves….He’s a temporary back up.
Nate Allen should be cut……..
Lets be real here, no one on this site really studied Rams games that Fletcher played in for his short career thus far. Thus we can really only go by the numbers. And the stats say he was pretty good for a young player when he played, plain and simple. His biggest question mark this far in his career, hasn’t necessarily been talent, its been health. Stats show he can tackle and he doesn’t give up TDs on the regular. Thus those two things are major improvements over what we had with DRC and Nnamdi.
Not saying this guy will be a star, just hope he will be an above average starter in the league.
Im more concerned about the safeties then corners. I get why people are mad though but people are forgetting what was available. Who did you guys (DCAR/Gmcliff) want in FA at the corner position? Because it wasn’t special to me. Neither was the draft.
I guess Sean Smith, Aquib Talib, Brent Grimes, Derek Cox, Keenan Lewis, & Chris Houston, aren’t much better, HUH? How’s about Goldson, Quin, Delmas, Landry & Huff. All 12 of those players, are better & more talented, than the dumpster diving scraps, that Weaselman signed! Period! After they cut ASSomugha, & cut Vicks salary, & pre-free agency, we had one the highest amounts of cap space in the NFL. We still have over $25M. We went dumpster diving, & there is no EXCUSING it. This was the deepest depth in starting talent, the any off-season, has had in a very long time, for the secondary, in both FA & the draft, & we still managed not to upgrade our F^#@ING roster! But HEY, we drafted a project RT, in the 1st, a luxury TE in the 2nd, a rotational DT in the 3rd & a QB in the 4th, that we didn’t need, nor that is very good! So all is well in Eagleville!
Those guys you mention may be better but they are nothing special either. Smith gets burned on the regular. Grimes is a midget coming off major injury. Talib is one parking ticket away from being suspended by the league. Huff is terrible. Landry played well last year but has injury problems and got way overpaid. You see what im saying? we would be bitching about those guys too, and likely more since it would have cost us much more money to get them. And those guys were average at best in contract years, thus now that they got the money, who knows what they will be…
The only guys I wanted on that list was Goldson and Lewis. I heard the Birds tried to get Lewis but he turned them down. And I don’t think they were ever interested in giving Goldson 40 million at his age.
I wish we would have traded down and got Rhodes and Elam. That would have been my plan. Maybe they tried to trade. I wish we knew what the hell goes on in their draft room every year.
pheags, every player we signed has an injury history &/or lost their starting jobs. Wouldn’t you rather have the more talented injury risk? Grimes was a Pro bowl CB. Smith get’s burned? So does Williams. At least Smith is an up-&-comer, that hits & is physical. Lewis turned them down, because they offered him bargain basement $$$$. They failed in FA & the draft, PERIOD! No excuses, or reasoning will change that!
Pheags who I would have liked to have, Aquib Talib, and you would have had to trade for, my other choice (LaDarius Webb), because in my opinion, there was nothing on the free agent market for Cornerbacks..Nothing. I know who DCar likes, and he makes some strong points, as far as the TALENT level of players signed by the Eagles; Some of them are reaches, and aren’t even as talented as the guys he has mentioned. Bradley Fletcher? Are you kidding me?
The rest of the free agents they signed, to me, are ones they just hope regain their former success, or perceived potential in the league.
I Don’t like Barwin at all, Phillips, and Chung would best served as veteran backups, Geathers, and Sopoaga, are rotational guys, not impact. I like Cary Williams, but thats mainly because he is an upgrade over Nnamdi.This position had to be addressed in the draft, and it wasn’t
You know I hated the draft. I felt they need more impactful players in the secondary. Blidi Wreh Wilson, BW Webb, Jonathan Cyprian, were available…..
For the life of me , I do not understand why they chose not to draft any Linebackers. Just dumb, when you are changing to a 3-4 Jamie Collins, Ziggy Ansah, Sio Moore, and Xavier Gooden were available…..I want a championship Pheags, and no more mediocrity, and that won’t come until Howie is no longer GM….IMO
gmcliff, I want championship more than anyone. Thats why I wish they got rid of the entire shit stain Reid left here. Getting rid of losers like Vick, Allen, Watkins, Mathews is beyond logical in a rebuilding year. These guys have had a fair shot with the Eagles, but they showed they are ranked near the bottom of the league at their positions. But by keeping these bums here, who will likely not even be on NFL rosters 2 years from now, they seem like they want to waste more time this year instead of trying to rebuild a championship roster asap. Anybody that wants to keep bums like that here are clearly more fans of that individual player than they are for the Eagles.
Talib had a nice year but I wouldn’t exactly call him a must have based on his talent, also since he can be kicked out of the NFL at any moment. Further, Im guessing the Ravens didn’t want to give up on Webb yet. You cant just force a team to trade you a player unless you drastically over pay for them.
But the market sucked. The draft was nothing special at CB either unless you were going to use a first on Rhodes/Milliner. Im pissed they didn’t take advantage of the quality of safeties in the draft. but the ones I wanted were gone by the time they got to pick 35 anyway.
I get that on Webb, but you were asking what I wanted them to do, not what they were willing to do.
Aqib Talib, even with all his issues, talent wise is better than any corner on the Eagles roster including Cary Williams. He chose to stay with the Patriots for less money than he would get on the Free Agent Market.
I hear you Pheags on Matthews, Watkins, and Nate Allen, but I am not as down on Vick as most. I actually posted well before it happened, not to be surprised if he was resigned.
This team doesn’t have front office with an eye for talent. Thats lacking more than a secondary, OLB’s, or anything else
I get that on Webb, but you were asking what I wanted them to do, not what they were willing to do.
Aqib Talib, even with all his issues, talent wise is better than any corner on the Eagles roster including Cary Williams. He chose to stay with the Patriots for less money than he would get on the Free Agent Market.
I hear you Pheags on Matthews, Watkins, and Nate Allen, but I am not as down on Vick as most. I actually posted well before it happened, not to be surprised if he was resigned.
This team doesn’t have front office with an eye for talent. Thats lacking more than a secondary, OLB’s, or anything else
I think Williams will be a good addition. He’s a competitor and likes to mix it up, that’s the opposite of what we have seen since Sheldon Brown was here. I honestly think the validity of the secondary lays on the shoulders of Kenny PHillips health. If healthy, he’s a definite baller that will be te secondary as a whole better. Not sure about this Bradley guy? With Chung the potential is there, just hope he’s not a headache. I’m not as down on this secondary as most. are they the most talented? No. But look to last year and see what the most talented got us?
I believe that bring in another Veteran CB
I think Boykin/Fletcher compete at one side while Cary Williams handles the other side.. Poyer is an interesteing Player whose best Position may end up being FS down the road..lots of question marks no doubt, but good competition and solid coaching should make all the Players better
And be careful of Patrick Chung, I don’t believe he is the Player that nany of you think. He’s a big hitter, but get’s caught out of position on many plays and his recovery speed and play recognition is questionable in my opinion
Though he did play for Kelly & Oregon so there is familiarity with him
Should be some great battles , but the health
Of Kenny Phillips and Fletcher are the key of turning around the Secondary’s Play.. If these Players are good to go and remain healthy, they are improved,
If these Players get injured, Eagles back-end is in trouble again..
I do not understand the complaints of “did not address the_________________” (pick an area).
A team cannot address all areas every year. A team must prioritize. For a proper rebuilding program – and that is what this team is (3 years too late, but better late than never)…secondary is….well…..secondary.
The FAs brought in were nice additions….and the secondary should be improved a bit….but they’re really just stopgaps for now. Keep the team D from being entirely embarassing like last year. Plus, there was the entire “addition by subtraction”. In order for Kelly to make this “his” team, cutting aloof Nmandi and lazy DRC was a logical move and had to be done regardless of production. (same arguement to be made for you know who). Knowing that they were going to cut those 2, and that the 2 safties the Eagles do have are abysmal, they had to bring someone in. These are inexpensive NFL starters. Good for the next while.
Its a nice job so far, but the secondary is relatively irrelevant at this stage of the team’s re-development.
The team is rebuilding. Lines out.
Kelly’s stamp for the rebuild is all about OL, DB and QB. (top 4 picks all at those positions to go with Cox, Foles, perhaps Curry from last year)
All high draft picks will be used in these 3 key areas untill Kelly/Roseman are satisfied with the players they have there, and then they will begin moving to spending higher picks on s”skill” positions like DB, WR etc.
Its the right strategy (frankly I would only ever take OL, DL or QB in the first round ever – but that’s just me)
Well said Vinnie!
consistently the best read on the comment section
Tanks Eagles0!!
ugh…”tanks”….sounds like I’m from Trois-Rivieres….meant “thanks”…
Are you from Quebec Vinnie.. Good Grief…
I figured someone might google “trois rivieres”…I just meant I sounded like a Quebexican…errrr….Frenchman in general.
And no, I’m not from there. (though Ottawa is about 60/40 English/french
Absolutely.
Vinnie, how the heck are they building the team lines out when they only drafted one Offensive lineman and two fringe defensive lineman? Ertz was drafted for his pass catching ability. And the secondary is irrelevant? What NFL have you been watching?
And building your offensive line means not heading into the season with Kelce coming of knee surgery not cleared for practice until trading camp and Dallas Reynolds as your only centers, why is Reynolds still on the roster? Reid isn’t here so we don’t need a token BYU guy anymore.
I’m only gonna say this once coaching was the reason for the defense being terrible the last 2 seasons some of these players will surprise you this season trust me.
LMFAO …Paulman that dude does look like an old azz Eskin
Sure we they didn’t add the big names. (How the hell did that method work out for us btw?). But I actually like the additions based upon what was AVAILABLE.
The corner market sucked, and the corners in the draft weren’t exactly stud prospects either…Thus Im ok with our corners for this season. (its not a one year fix ppl). Byrd was franchised and Gholdson went for a fortune.
I am disappointed we didn’t come away with a top safety in the draft (I wanted Elam in Eagles green bad). But there was no safeties available at 35 that was worthy of taking. SO why reach? to get another Nate Allen/Jarrett yea I’ll pass.
I also like this Fletcher kid. He was playing very well for a young player until he got hurt, so we don’t know whether he sucks or not yet.
I think he has started over 20 games and played in over 40. And has only missed like 6 tackles in his career. It seems like those soft pussies Nnamdi and DRC missed 6 tackles by the first halftime of the season. Thus at least the kid can tackle, which will be a change of what we have seen.
BUT please get Nate Allen of this fucking team. The dude had a fair chance. He sucks, send him packing.
Pheaggs you know the only reason he’s still here is he was a early round 2 pick. He is actually beyond bad but he has better athletic ability then Chung. I just don’t think he’ll get over his fear of contact. I still don’t understand why he’s still on the roster.
I called for the entire secondary to be replaced and the Eagles did it — they removed everyone — The current secondary is nothing special but they were just putrid last year, no one deserved to be back.
Yup! They will add to this mix over the next 2 years.
Some guys say we do not have any game changers on defense. Unfortunately those game changers have to be Cox,Kendrick and Boykins. These are the players from your draft class of 2012. They have to be your difference makers or last years draft was a bust also.
I see Cox contributing big this year. Depending on use Kendricks may be your chase and tackle machine.
Boykins isn’t a game changer bruh…….Thats not a newsflash, when it’s old news. He got ate up last year; another nickelback, with special teams skills.
Boynkin is not a slot CH that the Eagles had him playing last Season
I hop he gets a chance to play the outside for that’s his natural position, he just lost in traffic in the middle of the Field last year.. I said it last year and still believe his best position is to play outside and utilize his speed and ball hawking abilities.. The Eagles last year made the mistake of trying to make him like Juselio Hanson instead of letting him do what’s best and that’s play in space where he can cover and run to the ball
He may not be that either Paul. I think the mistake sime make is assuming the player you see in college, will be the same one you will see in the NFL………Mistake……
Some players in college are just THE man on their college team, but in the NFL, there are those who are considered elite athletic specimens, and everybody else is pretty much on the same tier athletically, but some of those work harder, are more determined, and have more heart……Where would you say Brandon Boykins is right now Paul?
I really don’t know for sure. My point is he really has something to prove, because this isn’t college, and no one is going to just hand him their potential spot in the NFL. He has some work to do to me. I am not as confident in him as a special prospect. I THINK MANY ARE STILL STUCK ON HIS COLLEGE HIGHLIGHTS SO, THEY ASSUME HE WILL JUMP OUT OF A PHONE BOOTH A BE SOMETHING HE IS NOT IN DUE TIME…….Foolish
I see Boykin as a Reserve CB and a Special Teamer.. which is what I thought about him out of COllege in last years Draft.. HE can be a solid Nickel CB (but on the outside) and be a Gunner on SPecial Teams and Return some.. A Rotational Player with about 25 Snaps a Game which included SPecial Teams.. not a play-maker or a Starter by any stretch is my assesment, but I would like to see how he perfroms playing the outside CB postion and not the Slot where he gets lost in traffic..
Year 2 is when you will see this roster completely turn over..
Year 1 I think chip wants to see what the players that are here can do
I think that Chip didn’t want to completely shit on the few Veteran players that are here without offering them a chance at proving themselves.
As a first year New to the NFL head coach this is understandable …(to me at least)
Go to camp see what they can do or can’t do then go from there