Eagles Add Cooper DeJean in 2nd Round To Completely Reshape Secondary
Eagles fans came into the draft hoping the Eagles would come away with one of the top corners. They did that by adding Quinyon Mitchell on day 1. But Howie was not done there. Because he shocked us even more on day 2 by trading up and grabbing Cooper Dejean as well.
The Eagles secondary was in shambles by the end of 2023. They were among the worst in the league in every pass defense category. Their secondary was made of aging veterans, UDFAs, and day 3 picks. It badly needed an infusion of not just talent, but youth.
Well check and check. Eagles fans would have been happy with DeJean or Mitchell in the 1st round. They got both.
They Have Options On How To Use Cooper DeJean
Quinyon Mitchell played some slot CB in college, but he is going to be an outside corner for the Eagles. He is a near-lock to be the 2nd starter alongside Darius Slay.
With Dejean they have options though. He can play outside, inside, and Safety. The latter may be what makes the most sense. They added CJ Gardner Johnson to take up one of the Safety spots, but the other starter is a question mark.
Reed Blankenship struggled in his 2nd season. Sydney Brown will miss the start of the season. Beyond them, there is not much else. Add on the fact that new DC Vic Fangio loves using 3 Safety packages, he can definitely get on the field as a Safety year 1.
A Much Different Secondary
We might see 4 different starters in the secondary this year. Quinyon Mitchell replaces James Bradberry. CJGJ replaces one of the Safeties. Cooper Dejean might replace the other Safety. And it is no lock yet that Avonte Maddox is in the slot. That could even be Cooper DeJean.
It was a badly needed transformation. They went from having one of the worst in the league, to adding 3 dynamic playmakers. A weakness could flip into one of their strengths, provided the two rookies live up to their hype.
Deja Vu
We all know by this point that the Eagles hadn’t drafted a CB in the 1st round since 2002 when they took Lito Shepard. That changed this year.
But oddly enough that same year, they started with two 2nd round picks, just like this year. And in the draft, they used 1 of those 2nd round picks to take Sheldon Brown, creating one of the best CB duos the Eagles ever had.
It seems history repeats itself. We do not yet know if Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper Dejean will be as great as Shepard and Brown. But they used this draft to reshape their secondary, just like that Eagles team did.
In 2002 the Eagles already had a prolific CB duo in Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor. The Eagles are a year removed from Darius Slay and James Bradberry making up a fairly elite CB duo.
Both pairs of corners were aging though, and we saw last year age take its toll on Bradberry. Slay could see a similar drop at some point, though he still played at a high-level last year.
In 2002 the Eagles saw the writing on the wall and brought in two young corners to eventually replace their aging stars. The Eagles might have just been a year late of doing the same thing, but better late than never.
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