Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda: Changing of the Guard at Safety

With Malcom Jenkins out the door, the Eagles are going to rely on several different pieces to make up for his loss, with the heaviest burden likely falling on Jalen Mills

Arguably the most valuable and certainly the most versatile Eagles defender is gone, maybe not from the city just yet but Malcolm Jenkins is no longer the leader of Jim Schwartz’s back seven on defense.

Philadelphia made the difficult decision to move on from the 32-year-old veteran this offseason when a prolonged contract impasse couldn’t be worked out.

The thought process from the Eagles’ perspective is also a common way of thinking around the NFL - better to give up on a player a year early than a year late.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenkins has remained in the Philadelphia area and continued to be the leader he always was in the Eagles’ locker room, whether leading others in the peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, serving as the virtual commencement speaker to Philadelphia’s 2020 graduating high-school seniors or working out with long-time running mate Rodney McLeod and one of the players tabbed to replace, free-agent pickup and city native Will Parks.

In the short term, it’s almost unthinkable that the Eagles’ defense won’t miss Jenkins.

Once the decision was made, however, that opened the door to the return of McLeod, who has been the single-high safety while Jenkins served as Schwartz’s moving chess piece playing by the DC’s own count, all seven positions on the back of the defense at times over the past several years.

The feeling from Howie Roseman was that the Eagles needed some continuity with all the changes in the defensive backfield and McLeod had been interning for years under Jenkins when it came to both leadership and communication.

McLeod, who re-signed with a two-year deal, will turn 30 later this month and doesn’t have the sideline-to-sideline range of the elite centerfielders although he remains a more than competent player.

The most interesting decision is the shift of Jalen Mills, from starting left cornerback to penciled in replacement for Jenkins.

Rewind to Nov. 17 of last season and you might remember the Eagles were coming off their bye week and facing a difficult part of the schedule with the reigning Super Bowl champions set to invade Lincoln Financial Field.

With the extra time to prepare for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, Schwartz took notice of the lack of playmakers on the outside for the Pats and the aging Brady’s propensity to throw inside and underneath so the DC decided to make a bit of a tweak, often taking Mills away from his duties at CB to deal with what Brady depended on in what turned out to be his final season with New England, his running backs and tight ends.

The Eagles struggled offensively in that game and weren’t able to get it done during a 17-10 setback, but Mills excelled in his expanded role.

“I had fun that game,” said Mills during a conference call earlier this spring. “I was around the ball almost every play.”

A mental note was made by Schwartz and the personnel department, and when the Eagles weren’t able to work things out contractually with Jenkins, the trigger was pulled.

No one knows Mills’ game better than Schwartz and the Eagles were the only organization looking to move the LSU product back to safety. Every other free-agency suitor for Mills planned on keeping him at CB where he quickly developed into a contributor after being a seventh-round pick in 2016, Schwartz’s first year on the job in Philadelphia.

In the classroom, a move to safety has always made sense for Mills, a player who is a bit speed-deficient on the outside but plenty fast enough to handle things on the back end.

“As far as the shoes I’m going to have to fill with the name Malcolm Jenkins, of course, it’s going to be a task,” said Mills. “There’s been a standard set there — you could go past Jenk to Brian Dawkins — a tone-setter at that position in the city of Philadelphia. I know for sure it’s going to be a standard I have to rise up to, but I’ll be ready for it.”

If he’s not, Plan B is Will Parks, the former Germantown High School star who took less money to return to his home city with a one-year deal. In Denver, Parks played both safety positions and nickel CB so he might be a natural fit for Schwartz’s “big-nickel” package.

The versatility theme continued in the draft with fourth-round pick K’Von Wallace, a star at Clemson where he would often rove across the back end in Death Valley. Few would be surprised if Wallace was a starter by 2021 but the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to slow the development of rookies at least early.

Others in the mix as depth pieces are special-teams stalwart Rudy Ford, 2019 waiver-pickup Marcus Epps, an instinctive CF, and Grayland Arnold, a high-level undrafted free agent from Baylor.

COULDA: Traded a third-round pick to cap-strapped Minnesota and then signed perhaps the best centerfielder in the game, Anthony Harris. That would have been incredibly expensive, however, and is more video game roster building.

SHOULDA: Drafted Southern Illinois safety Jeremy Chinn with the No. 53 overall pick. An NFL source told SI.com that the Eagles were mulling between Jalen Hurts, Ohio State RB J.K. Dobbins, and Chinn at that selection and went luxury instead of filling a hole. Chinn ended up going No. 64 to Carolina while Dobbins was off the board at 55 to Baltimore.

WOULDA: Just worked things out with Jenkins and ridden it out with the franchise’s second-best safety in the modern era.

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Monday and Friday on SIRIUSXM’s Tony Bruno Show with Harry Mayes, and every Tuesday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SBNation Radio. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen