Two Eagles Newcomers Talk About Making a Difference in Secondary
The new cornerback pieces held court on Zoom as the Eagles began the second week of training camp on Monday.
Darius Slay went first followed by Nickell Robey-Coleman.
It was the first time Robey-Coleman talked with reporters since he signed a one-year free agent on March 31 for $1.3 million. The 28-year-old said the Eagles came out of nowhere to sign him.
“I had a couple of teams looking at me, evaluating me, and we were getting down to some decisions,” said Robey-Coleman, who is No. 1 on the depth chart at slot corner. “And that’s when the Philadelphia Eagles gave us a phone call and expressed how much they liked my style of play.
“And how they sounded very enthusiastic about making this move. It sounded like they were more interested in me than the other team that was interested in me, so I went with that rather than being paid or anything.”
Slay, 29, arrived via a trade from the Lions and was signed to a contract extension that guarantees his salary through the 2021 season with a cap hit that goes from $4.3M this year to a whopping $15.75 next year, a year in which the Eagles are already sitting at $67M above the cap if the projection of a decrease from $198M in 2020 to $175M is correct.
This about the here-and-now, though, and right now, the Eagles are counting on a vastly improved secondary from a year ago, when touchdown passes seem to sail over the heads and outstretched arms of that unit with alarming regularity.
“This is my first year here,” said Slay. “I don’t know how they operated. I’ll never take nothing personally when it comes to this game because the game is fun.
“I heard a lot of stories about how they were being disrespected, but from me watching they had good film, some good situations. They brought me here to help it get better. That’s what my goal is to do.”
Slay is somewhat of an interception machine with 19 of them already in his seven seasons and one in each of his seasons except for his first year.
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz went on record during a July 31 Zoom call about how he will have Slay match-up against an opponent’s best receiver, whether that’s 100 percent of the time, 75 percent of the time or 50 percent of the time will be dependent on the game plan.
Schwartz also said there will be times Slay lines up in the slot in order to remove the tell of whether a defensive call is man-to-man coverage or a zone.
“Slay sad he played some slot in Detroit, but Justin Coleman was being paid “great” money to play that spot, so not much. In Philly, that could be different.
“In this defense, I have to open my brain up a little more and get ready to play some nickel too this year,” said Slay.
Right now, though, the secondary is trying to build as much chemistry as they can before playing their season opener in just over a month, on Sept. 13, without any preseason games to get used to one another.
“It’s a challenge,” said Robey-Coleman, “but it’s a process that’s got to be expedited. That’s why you have seasoned veterans that can come in and adjust to the climate of the organization or a situation that’s going on outside of football, just speaking about this pandemic.
“Me, Slay, Rod (McLeod), (Jalen) Mills that have been places, been deep in the playoffs, went to Super Bowls, we know how to adjust to things like this. We’re not lost in the sauce of like we had forgotten how to play football. It’s still a game. We still know how to line up and play man-to-man. We still know how to play zone. It’s just how do we get to those things?
“It’s like little, small nuances of the defense that we just have to have down pat in order to be understood all the way across the board from every level of the defense. It’s not just the secondary … If we can all of that to come around in a cool amount of time, I feel we’ll be OK for Week 1. From there, we’ll just make small adjustments going through the season.”
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