The Eagles aren’t landing a big free-agent fix for their secondary; don’t expect great improvement in 2020
They wanted Byron Jones, but when that didn't work out, they seemed to lack an attractive alternative.
In the weeks leading up to NFL free agency, conventional wisdom held that the Eagles would prioritize a significant signing for their secondary, probably at corner, leaving them free to focus on transforming their undermanned wide receiver corps in the early rounds of the draft.
Free agency officially started at 4 p.m. Wednesday, after 52 hours of “legal tampering.” By the time the auction finally opened, anybody who might have made a huge impact at corner or safety was wearing a “sold” sign.
And by that point, the Eagles had declined safety Malcolm Jenkins’ 2020 option, after failing to come to agreement on a new deal with the best, healthiest, most consistent defensive back of the Doug Pederson era. A day after bidding Philadelphia farewell, Jenkins agreed to terms with the Saints.
So right now, the Eagles’ 2020 secondary looks worse than the group that gave up the second-most 40-plus-yard receptions in the league last season. Only 10 teams gave up more than their total of 27 touchdown passes. There are still corners and safeties the Birds can bring in, through trade or in free agency’s second wave, but could any of those players really lift the unit? The odds are slim.
The Eagles will add a corner from somewhere -- though it apparently won’t be Desmond Trufant, released by the Falcons, a team that formerly employed new Eagles defensive backs coach Marquand Manuel. Trufant reportedly has reached agreement with the Lions.
The Eagles apparently had interest in soon-to-be-31-year-old free agent Chris Harris, but not enough interest to keep him from agreeing to terms with the Chargers on Wednesday.
If a difference-making talent arrives, it will have to be through the draft, which raises two issues:
1. The Eagles pretty much are required to take a wide receiver in the first round this year, aren’t they?
2. As inept as this front office has been at judging wideout talent, it has been much worse at drafting corners. The last cornerback drafted by the Eagles to make the Pro Bowl was Lito Sheppard, their first-round pick in 2002.
Then there is the fact that making an impact as a rookie is tough, even in normal circumstances. This year, coronavirus quarantining makes it unlikely teams will hold OTAs and minicamp on a normal schedule. The main point of those exercises is to teach a team’s systems to the newcomers. Asking a rookie to step in and start -- or even play a lot -- without that background is especially daunting.
It seems the Eagles really did target top free-agent corner Byron Jones, but they quickly realized this week that the bidding was going beyond what they were willing to pay, working against a Miami team that could highlight Florida’s lack of a state income tax. Jones became the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback, getting a five-year, $82.5 million deal, with $57 million guaranteed.
You might think finding out that your big fix for the secondary wasn’t going to work could cause you to reassess where you were with Jenkins, but apparently not. Jenkins, who turned 32 in December, is getting a $16.5 million guarantee to return to the Saints, with a $9 million signing bonus, and on paper, four years overall at $32 million -- $35 million if he hits all his incentives. There is very little chance Jenkins plays four more years at that figure, but he’ll probably play a couple. It sure seems the Eagles wouldn’t have had to stretch too far from the $7.6 million Jenkins was due this season to make something work. There, though, you have to factor in how Jenkins might have felt about the organization’s reluctance to do a new deal in nearly a year since he first made his feelings known.
Apparently, Jalen Mills will get a crack at Jenkins’ spot, opposite Rodney McLeod. That might make Avonte Maddox and Rasul Douglas the outside corners, with Cre’Von LeBlanc the nickel. This might seem uninspiring. It might prop open the door on whatever chance there might still be that Sidney Jones can redeem his long-dormant potential.
“That’s an important position,” general manager Howie Roseman said about cornerbacks in his January review of the Eagles’ season. “You see it, when you have a guy who can really kind of take over and take one side of the field, but those guys are hard to find. They don’t kind of grow on trees.”
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz prizes defensive line domination over all else, and that was where the Eagles took their one big shot in free agency, three years and $39 million for defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, a player they weighed against Isaac Seumalo in the 2016 draft before deciding offensive line was the bigger need. The Eagles took left guard Seumalo 79th overall, in the third round; the Steelers took Hargrave 89th overall.
It’s starting to sink in that when Roseman spoke last month about “a retool period,” he might have been softening the blow a bit. The Eagles are going to play a lot of rookies and otherwise untested players this year, hoping they mature quickly. Barring a draft weekend miracle, this team will not be listed among the top NFC contenders when training camps open, whenever that might be.
“Not that we don’t want to win this year, we desperately want to win this year, but [the focus is] more over building this team over 2020, 2021, hopefully 2022," Roseman said at the NFL scouting combine. "It’s hard to look three years out, really, but keep our eye on that. I think that maybe changes the complexion of some of our decisions this offseason, that it’s different from coming off the Super Bowl, or coming off losing to the Saints in the divisional round.”