Chasing the Ghost of a Healthy Tim Jernigan
The book on Tim Jernigan in Philadelphia officially closed this week when the talented defensive tackle agreed to terms with the Houston Texans.
The writing was already on the wall after the Eagles gave big money to Javon Hargrave in free agency and also re-signed the younger Hassan Ridgeway for depth purposes.
It was fleeting but in many ways, the eulogy of Jernigan’s stay in South Philadelphia is about unfulfilled promise and the organization chasing what the Florida State product gave them for a very short time after being acquired from Baltimore during the 2017 offseason.
If you talk to personnel people around the NFL, the sentiment is that edge rusher is the most important position in the league when it comes to defensive football. If you chat with quarterbacks, however, they can deal with even the most dominant pressure coming from the outside. What they don’t want is pressure right up the middle, in their faces.
If it weren’t for interior pressure from the New York Giants’ front four, Tom Brady would have eight Super Bowl rings instead of six.
For the first half of the Eagles’ 2017 season, Jernigan was everything the Eagles envisioned, a complement to All-Pro Fletcher Cox inside and a duo that could collapse any pocket, making it nearly impossible for opposing QBs to climb up to avoid that outside rush.
It worked out so well, Philadelphia signed Jernigan to a big-money (four years, $48 million) extension during the bye week that year.
Then came injuries. It wasn’t terrible at first. A nagging ankle injury slowed Jernigan’s production in 2017, but Beau Allen was serviceable en route to a Super Bowl LII championship.
The real hiccup came in the offseason, before the 2018 season, when Jernigan suffered a mysterious non-football injury that required surgery for a herniated disc which threatened his very career and essentially wiped out his extension.
Jernigan has always declined to confirm what exactly happened, saying only that he will tell the story one day but rumors of a weightlifting accident have persisted and are plausible.
Either way, the Eagles have continued to chase what Jernigan once provided them. Last year it was signing Malik Jackson to a three-year, $30M deal before a Lisfranc injury derailed that after just one game. This season it’s bringing in Javon Hargrave from Pittsburgh on a three-year, $39M deal.
As big as those deals have been portrayed they are both less than what the Eagles committed to a healthy Jernigan.
The Eagles are still chasing that ghost.
John McMullen covers the Eagles for SI.com. You can listen to John every day at 4 ET on ESPN 97.3 in South Jersey and reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
