Birds need to corner a leader just like Seattle’s Sherman
PHILADELPHIA » Cornerbacks don’t grow on trees. Certainly not trees broiling under the South Philadelphia sun.
Everybody knows this, just like they know that the Eagles play defense with not one or two, but three cornerbacks 70 percent of each game.
All of that has created a problem for defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, who, despite his optimism over a turbocharged pass rush that’s supposed to give the corners a little more margin for error, cannot escape reality. This team, at this time ,is cornerback-deficient.
Von Miller’s edge rush wouldn’t make the Eagles’ cornerbacks viable enough to win regularly.
It’s not a bashing of Jalen Mills, C.J. Smith and rookie Rasul Douglas. They have immense upside, particularly Mills. This isn’t a shot at veteran Patrick Robinson, either. He’s a oneyear contract guy.
We’re not taking a cheap shot at defensive backs coach Corey Undlin or his creative language. Coaches coach, players play. Cornerbacks rarely play cornerback well without help they receive from someone who is there, and is doing that.
Even Eagles great Brian Dawkins, working in the football operations department, cannot reach the cornerbacks the way a proven veteran such as, OK, let’s get this out of the way ... a Richard Sherman could.
Want to show us you’re really good, Howie Roseman? Go get the Seahawks’ shutdown cornerback, who is trying to talk his way out of Seattle.
The Eagles easily could create the salary cap space to work a deal for Sherman. There are a small handful of players they could throw into a trade, along with second or third-day draft pick, to get it done.
Are you OK without somebody like linebacker Mychal Kendricks, who doesn’t play much anyway because — stop us if you’ve heard this — the Eagles use three cornerbacks 70 percent of the time?
Do the Eagles have to keep safety Rodney McLeod, who had a decent year but not nearly as spectacular as Malcolm Jenkins did. Hmmm, the Eagles recently signed 32-yearold veteran safety Corey Graham, who not only loved playing for Schwartz, he’s started every game the past two seasons. Making yourself available to play — also known as playing hurt — is huge when coaches game plan.
Wide receiver Jordan Matthews is movable. The big guy is healthy and in the last year of rookie contract.
Don’t take this the wrong way, Vinny Curry, but if the Eagles could get Sherman, that might be best for you and the Birds in the long run.
Think about it. The average NFL career is three years, according to some website I looked at. The average NFL career of a rookie who makes the opening day roster is six years. Thus, there’s no time to waste in developing Mills and Douglas, who at 6-2, 209-pounds is built like Sherman. And let’s not forget Sidney Jones, the secondround draft pick with his first-round talent who’s coming back from a torn Achilles’ tendon.
Sherman has a mouth like no one else. The next day he goes without ripping the league’s owners for not signing Colin Kaepernick could be the first. That’s not all he talks about. Eagles fans would love Sherman because he doesn’t just make football games personal, he walks his talk.
“Yeah, I think he can fit in,” Jenkins said. “If I can fit in, he can fit in.”
Former Seahawks cornerback Byron Maxwell, who joined the Eagles for a year, said Sherman is one of the hardest workers in football. The example Sherman set daily rubbed off on everyone including Maxwell, who, after that awful, injurymarred season with the Eagles rebounded with a stellar year with the Dolphins. Let’s be honest about Seattle. It’s the birthplace of cornerbacks.
The Eagles have kicked the tires on Sherman, and while it sure doesn’t appear anything is imminent, that’s the way the NFL is. One month, two months and nothing happens. One day, it’s done.
To prove they’re serious about taking a giant step this season the Eagles need to pool their resources and trade for an established corner.
Kyle Fuller, a firstround pick with the Bears, might be worth something, even though he’s coming off a knee injury.
You can’t really blame the Eagles for passing on cornerbacks in the first round of the draft. Marshon Lattimore, the purest cover corner in the lottery, fell to 11 because Andy Reid and the Chiefs traded up to No. 10 overall to draft quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
We’re OK selecting Derek Barnett, the toprated pass rusher over corners Gareon Conley, Marlon Humphrey, Adorree Jackson and Tre’Davious White.
We’re not good with burning a year of Carson Wentz’s career. And that could happen if the corners struggle. It could trigger a chain reaction where the safeties play deeper, enabling the opposition to run, where Wentz finds himself playing catch-up, where the Birds abandon the run, are on the wrong end of time of possession and so on, and so forth.
Schwartz insists he’s seen potential in his corners and that the preseason will help in the evaluation process. I’m not so sure.
“Whoever we’ve got going out there I feel confident that we can tweak things to have success,” Jenkins said. “Obviously we don’t have a lot of experience out there so it’s a lot of competition right now. But whoever we end up with we’ll make sure that we put them in a position to succeed, however that might be. And that’s up to the leaders on the team, obviously Jim Schwartz and what he calls and our coaches to get whoever’s out there prepared to play.”