New CB Darby took trade to Eagles to heart
Ronald Darby heard one word before he heard the other. The connection didn’t take long, but it wasn’t instant, either. The first one: Trade. The first thought: Uh-oh. The next word: Philadelphia. The conclusion: Nice. “My heart jumped at first,” Darby said Monday, with a laugh, after practicing with the Eagles at their NovaCare Complex training camp. “I knew there were some teams I didn’t want to go to. But when I heard Philly, I was like, ‘OK, that’s not bad.’”
The Eagles acquired Darby, a cornerback, from the Buffalo Bills for receiver Jordan Matthews and a draft pick Friday, exchang-
ing depth at one position for a starter at another. He practiced Sunday and again Monday, and that was enough to validate his original thought: The Eagles’ defense would be to his benefit … and, he would try to prove, vice-versa.
“That ‘up-front’ is good,” said Darby, a native of Potomac, Md. “We’ve got experienced safeties, people that know what they’re doing. So I was like, ‘OK, I can do that.’ So it was kind of a relief. Thank you. It could always be a lot worse. I was pretty happy. I am close to home, only an hour and a half, two hours away. So it was a blessing.”
As it would have appeared, the Eagles were a lot worse before arrival of the third-year corner from Florida State. And Darby was quick to get to work to prove as much, working up a sweat in practice, sticking around a little longer than most, just for some more work.
He figures to be in the starting lineup Thursday when the Eagles play — yes — the Bills in a Linc exhibition game, and he’s hoping the familiarity is to his and his new team’s benefit.
“Yeah, that came to me a few minutes later,” Darby said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to Philly. Everything is going so fast.’ Then I thought, ‘Hey, we are playing them in a few days.’ So that was awkward.”
If the timing was a little touchy, the transition to a new defense hasn’t caused him stress. Under defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, the 5-11, 193-pound Darby could thrive with speed that once made him a competitive sprinter and a reputation for being physical when necessary.
“I fit perfectly into it,” he said. “I look at myself as a ‘man’ corner. I like to bump and run. And we’ve got players. And when you have players behind you, you have confidence. They are going to be there. They are going to go sideline-to-sideline. They can knock somebody’s head off. And our pass rush will help. If you can just mess up the timing a little bit, you can make a lot of plays. If you can get a receiver to just (flinch), their timing is off by that second.”
The timing of the trade was not perfect, a week into the preseason. Darby, though, figures he’ll have sufficient preparation for the for-keeps games.
“Everybody here – and obviously cornerback (Jalen) Mills – has been a big help to me,” Darby said. “And our safeties have helped and embraced me, too.”
Darby made a couple of strong plays Monday, at one point eliciting mild applause from the invited training-camp fans. In that, it was something of a turning point at a camp that had been dominated by the Birds’ offense. Did he hear it? “Not really,” he said. “I am locked in during practice. I am just trying to get the play and line up right, to make sure I know what I’m doing.
“You have to have confidence,” he added. “You are going to make mistakes. I’m blessed with speed, so I can kind of get myself out of a lot of situations. I can be a lot more patient because I trust my speed. But at the end of the day, it’s confidence. You have to be locked in. Splits tell you a lot, reads, cues. So there is a lot you have to learn.”
Darby knows he will spend plenty of study time in the meeting rooms before the Birds open their regular season Sept. 10 in Washington, close to his hometown. First, though, there is that Buffalo game.
“It will be awkward, of course,” he said. “Just a few days ago, I was there with them, eating lunch in the cafeteria.”
Then, he wasn’t thinking about being traded. If he had been, though, apparently there were some places he’d rather not have gone. Such as? “Nah,” he said smiling. “I don’t think I’ll say.”