Forced to the sideline, injured Eagles rookie Drew Mukuba is trying to learn as much as he can

Drew Mukuba hasn’t played a lot of football over the last week, but he’s watched a lot of it, both on the field at the NovaCare Complex and in meeting rooms. He’s talked a lot about it, too.

The Eagles’ rookie safety sits next to Sydney Brown in meetings and occasionally taps Brown on the shoulder with a question. Then there’s Reed Blankenship, the safety Mukuba hopes to start next to when the regular season begins — if he can beat out Brown. Mukuba, 22, does his best to “bug” Blankenship.

“I won’t shut up around him because I want to be the guy that wants to learn more and pick his brain a little bit more because he’s a guy that’s been doing this for a while at a very, very high level,” Mukuba said after practice Sunday. “I can’t shut up around Reed. I feel like I got to ask him something every second.”

Bugging Blankenship and tapping Brown looking for answers has been a big part of Mukuba’s work since he suffered a shoulder injury on a collision in practice last Saturday. Mukuba missed practices Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday before returning Friday and Sunday in a limited fashion. He has not returned to team drills, during which he was seemingly splitting first-team reps with Brown before the injury.

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Those reps have all gone to Brown with Mukuba out, and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has noted multiple times that missing physical reps can hinder development. It’s too early to say how Mukuba’s injury has impacted his standing on the depth chart since he hasn’t yet participated in team drills. The safety said he wasn’t sure if he was slated to play in Thursday’s preseason opener, a decision he said was up to trainers and the coaching staff.

But it certainly wasn’t a good time for an injury for a rookie learning a new scheme and trying to impress for a starting job. The injury also — perhaps unfairly — put a spotlight on one of the question marks facing Mukuba after the Eagles drafted him 64th overall: His lack of size at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, which would make him the lightest among the 37 safeties leaguewide who played more than 80% of their team’s snaps last season.

“I wouldn’t really look at it as a setback,” Mukuba said of the injury. “I feel like everybody’s journey is different. It just gives me a time to improve my knowledge and improve the mental side of the game so when I come back on the field a lot of things are going to be easier for me.”

Blankenship has been impressed with Mukuba’s football IQ, he said, and likes the physicality he saw from Mukuba in his college tape.

“I just wish he would get back to us,” Blankenship said. “I know physical reps are very important, but he’s taking all the mental reps, he’s still alive in the meetings and stuff, still asking the questions, still asking me questions, and he’s coming along.”

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The safety race is one of only a few positional battles with real intrigue for the Eagles, and it will continue to play out in the coming weeks, assuming Mukuba gets back to real, physical reps soon. In addition to first-team reps at safety, Mukuba was also on the field in dime packages earlier in camp, lining up both in the slot and in the second level.

Mukuba’s size led to the obvious speculation that safety wouldn’t be his long-term home after the Eagles drafted him. It’s a position he played in high school, but he mostly played corner and nickel during his first three seasons at Clemson before moving back to safety at Texas last season.

Safety, though, is where the Eagles are working him now, and for the foreseeable future, and where he still has the best shot to get on the field right away.

Until he gets back in team drills, and even after, he’ll continue to be a sponge, relying at times on the guy he’s trying to beat out for a job to help him do it.

“It’s a competitive room, but at the end of the day I feel like the guys care about each other at a deeper level to where it don’t matter who runs out there first, they just want to see the next guy succeed,” Mukuba said.

Right now, Mukuba said he and Brown are “pushing each other.”

“I feel like everything else will take care of itself,” he said.