Breaking down the Eagles’ new-look secondary, Howie Roseman’s recent run of 6th-round success and an A.J. Brown oddity.
We’ve got that and a whole lot more in our first post-draft edition of Roob’s Random Offseason Eagles Observations.
1. With free agency and the 2025 draft in the books, we can finally get a sense of what the Eagles’ revamped secondary will look like following the departures of Darius Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Avonte Maddox and Isaiah Rodgers from the Super Bowl-championship secondary. We know Quinyon Mitchell is a starting outside corner and Cooper DeJean is a starting inside corner. We know Reed Blankenship is a safety. After that? There’s an intriguing group of young defensive backs who are going to compete this summer, and it’s going to be fun to watch. Second-round pick Andrew Mukuba will battle Sydney Brown for the second safety spot, and Mukuba is the favorite as a 2nd-round pick, but Brown is going into his third season healthy and has two years of NFL experience and a bit of a head start on Makuba. Brown has some clear strengths – fast, tough and physical – and he’s a very good practice player, so he’s not going to let Mukuba win that job without a fight. The competition for that second outside corner spot starts with Kelee Ringo, also going into Year 3, and Adoree’ Jackson, a 1st-round pick back in 2017, with Eli Ricks also in the equation. I have to think Ringo has the edge based on what I saw his rookie year. Ringo is still only 22 and Jackson is 29, and we can all see how the roster is trending younger. Whoever loses that battle could become the top outside backup, but don’t count out Ricks. If Ricks has a good summer, Jackson becomes expendable. Backup slot is an interesting one. If Jackson isn’t starting, he can play slot, but with a good camp 5th-round rookie Mac McWilliams from Central Florida could challenge for that spot. If Jackson goes, that makes Blankenship – who turned 26 in March – the oldest d-back on the roster. And if Mukuba isn’t starting at safety, he’d be an option as well as a backup slot. It looks like Howie Roseman and Vic Fangio want as many young guys on the field as possible, and if they line up with DeJean, Mitchell and Ringo as the top three corners and Blankenship and Mukuba as starting safeties, that’s an average of just under 23 years old. This is a lot of change in one position group after the Eagles had the top pass defense in the NFL a year ago. But if the idea is to get younger and faster, it sure looks like that’s happening.
1B. The Eagles haven’t gone through a season without a regular starter in the secondary 27 or older since 1967, when they started Aaron Martin and Jim Nettles – both 25 – at corner and 26-year-old Nate Ramsey and 24-year-old Joe Scarpati at safety. The youngest starting secondary in Eagles history was the 1965 group, with Nelson and Scarpati both 22, Ramsey 24 and 26-year-old Irv Cross. Average age: 23.5.
2. Head coaches who’ve won two-thirds of their career games both in the regular season and the postseason: Vince Lombardi (.738 regular season, .900 postseason), George Halas (.682 regular season, .667 postseason) and Nick Sirianni (.706 regular season, .667 postseason).
3. Another defensive rookie with a real chance at significant playing time this year is Ty Robinson, the 4th-round defensive tackle from Nebraska. With Milton Williams gone, that’s 31 snaps per game the Eagles have to fill. You can’t get any more from Jalen Carter, who played the 2nd-most snaps per game of any interior lineman in the league last year. You’d hope Jordan Davis can increase from 21 per game to somewhere around 28 to 30, and you’d expect a decent jump also from Moro Ojomo, who averaged 23 per game. That still leaves somewhere between 10 to 15 snaps per game, and that could be a perfect role for Robinson. Because Robinson is older – he turned 24 on Saturday – and played six seasons at Nebraska you’d expect the transition to the NFL to be a quick one. It has to be. You can’t have a guy who’s 24 as a developmental project. But Robinson has a lot going for him – quick, strong, powerful, fast – and there’s reason to believe he can contribute in a small but significant role right away.
4. The Eagles brought in speedy wide receiver Ife Adeyi from Sam Houston State as a tryout guy in rookie camp. How fast is Adeyi? He ran 4.28 at his pro day. Adeyi had 30 catches for 271 yards and nine carries for 76 yards last year for the Bearkats. Adeyi had the game-winning 10-yard TD catch from Eric Schmid when Sam Houston beat South Dakota State 23-21 to win the FCS Championship in Frisco, Texas, in 2021. Interesting note about Adeyi: In 2018, as a junior at Legacy High in Mansfield, Texas, he ran on the 400-meter relay team that won the Texas 5A state championship in 40.17, still one of the fastest times in U.S. history. (Anchor runner for 2nd-place Thurgood Marshall High of Missouri City was De’Von Achane, now with the Dolphins.) Leadoff runner for Mansfield Legacy that day was Jais Smith, whose father Lamont was an Olympic gold medalist on the U.S. 4-by-4 team in Atlanta in 1996. Lamont graduated from Willingboro High School in South Jersey, a lifelong Eagles fan.
5. Saquon Barkley was the ninth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. It’s interesting and a little ominous to look at the first eight and what happened a year later. Those first eight 2,000-yard rushers averaged 2,046 yards and 5.6 yards per carry in their 2,000-yard season. Each one averaged at least 5.1 yards per carry. The next year, they averaged 1,079 yards and 4.2 yards per carry. That’s an average drop of 47 percent rushing yards and a 25 percent decrease in yards per carry. The highest rushing average by a player who ran for 2,000 yards the previous season was 4.5 by Adrian Peterson in 2013, but that was down from 6.0 the year before when he ran for 2,097 yards. Nobody else was over 4.3. The most rushing yards a year after a 2,000-yard season was Barry Sanders’ 1,491 in 1998 after his 2,053 season in 1997. But his per-carry average fell from 6.1 to 4.3. It’s not like these big drops are unique to 2,000-yard rushers. The top 23 rushing seasons in history (not including Barkley) have been followed by a significant yardage and per-carry drop. The most rushing yards in a season by a player who had more the next year? That would be Eric Dickerson’s 1,808 yards with a 4.6 as a rookie in 1983 followed by 2,105 and a 5.6 the next year. We’ll see this fall what kind of season Barkley can have on the heels of his electrifying 2,005-yard, 5.8-average season in 2024. The precedents are strong and not particularly encouraging. But none of those guys had this offensive line and this quarterback either.
6A. The sixth round has been a pretty good one for Howie Roseman over the last few years. Matt Pryor was a starter in 2020 and is back with the Eagles going into his eighth NFL season. Quez Watkins was terrific in 2021 with 43 catches for 647 yards and a 15.0 average before losing his confidence and fading out of the league. Shaun Bradley was a fantastic special teamer for three years. Marlon Tuipulotu was a functional rotational interior lineman for three years and is now with the Chiefs. Grant Calcaterra did some nice things last year while Dallas Goedert was out, with seven catches of 20 yards or more. Kyron Johnson was a key special teamer in 2022 and is now with the Titans. And we all know what Tanner McKee did against the Cowboys and Giants last year. All this on top of that Hall of Fame center who was a 6th-round pick 14 years ago. Since 2019, the Eagles have used 27 players drafted in the sixth round. Only the Jets (34) and Patriots (29) have played more. All of this bodes well for the four 6th-rounders the Eagles selected this year.
6B. In 1943 the Eagles – the Steagles, really – drafted a guy in the sixth round named Bruno Banducci, a guard out of Stanford. In 1950, Banducci – then playing for the 49ers – had the odd stat line of zero catches for 11 yards. How did that happen? In a game against the Bears at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, 49ers quarterback Frankie Albert threw a six-yard pass to end Alex Loyd, who lateraled to Banducci, trailing the play. Banducci ran 11 yards for his one career touchdown.
7. JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK: Jalen Hurts has started nine playoff games in his career and had a passer rating of at least 100 in six of them, including five of his last six. Only nine quarterbacks in NFL history have had more postseason games with a rating of 100: Tom Brady (19), Patrick Mahomes (13), Joe Montana (12), Brett Favre (10), Aaron Rodgers (10), Russell Wilson (10), Troy Aikman (9), Drew Brees (8) and Terry Bradshaw (7). The one game since Super Bowl LVII Hurts didn’t reach 100 was the Rams last year, when he finished with a 91.2 rating.
8. The first offensive player the Eagles drafted last month was center Drew Kendall with the 168th pick. That’s the latest they’ve ever taken their first offensive player. The previous latest was in 1975, when they selected offensive tackle Bill Capraun out of Miami with their first pick – at No. 167. This year’s draft was the third straight in which the Eagles didn’t take an offensive player in the first 100 picks. And it was Roseman’s fifth draft (2010, 2017, 2023, 2024, 2025) without an offensive player in the top 100. The last time it that happened before Roseman was GM was 1978 (when they only had two picks in the top 100).
9. This is a weird one: Jalen Hurts has thrown 23 touchdown passes in the fourth quarter in his career, and only one has gone to A.J. Brown. He’s thrown eight to DeVonta Smith, four to Greg Ward, two to Jalen Reagor, two to Dallas Goedert and one apiece to Brown, Olamide Zaccheaus, Quez Watkins, Julio Jones, Kenny Gainwell, Grant Calcaterra and Lane Johnson. A.J.’s only 4th-quarter TD as an Eagle was a 28-yarder in the 2023 overtime win over Washington at the Linc. Brown caught seven 4th-quarter touchdown passes from Ryan Tannehill in three years as a Titan. What does all this mean? Nothing. But it’s kind of fun that Lane Johnson has as many 4th-quarter TD catches as A.J. Brown.
10. What’s the highest the Eagles have ever drafted a quarterback who never played in the NFL? Let’s go back 66 years. In 1959, the Eagles selected Villanova quarterback Jim Grazione with the 39th overall pick – which back then was a 4th-rounder. Grazione was a Philly kid who attended Southeast Catholic High School at 7th and Christian (which became Bishop Neumann in 1956, when it moved to 11th and Moore). With Norm Van Brocklin and Sonny Jurgensen already on the roster, coach Buck Shaw was working Grazione at defensive back and flanker in 1959 training camp. But he suffered a severe right ankle injury in a practice on Sept. 2 and was released two weeks later. He got an offer to join the Packers before the 1960 season but didn’t want to leave Philadelphia, and he never did. Grazione spent the next 33 years working as a pre-sentencing investigator for the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. He died in 2011 in Abington.
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