Eagles' Defensive Depth Takes on Special-Teams Tint

PHILADELPHIA — When you tally up the Eagles’ initial 53-man roster, you’ll come up with 23 offensive players, three specialists, and 27 defenders but the tilt toward defense didn’t give Jim Schwartz the biggest smile. That was reserved for special teams coordinator Dave Fipp.

With no preseason games to study and no live special-teams drills during training camp, general manager Howie Roseman admitted that part of the game is going to generate some uncertainty.

And that meant special-teams stalwarts like Craig James, Rudy Ford, and Alex Singleton getting the tiebreakers when it came to the back-end roster spots.

“We haven't had any live special teams drills, so for us, special teams are going to be a big unknown as we get started here,” said Roseman on a Saturday afternoon call after the Eagles trimmed their roster to the NFL-allowed limit.

And that’s been a scary proposition at times for the Eagles during normal summers without any additional COVID-19 hurdles.

“We've been in games since I've been here where those first couple games, we've maybe lost the game because of special teams and so we wanted to protect that,” said Roseman.

Overall, Roseman and VP of player personnel Andy Weidl went heavy at defensive end as projected, keeping six (Brandon Graham, Derek Barnett, Josh Sweat, Vinny Curry, Genard Avery, and rookie Casey Toohill) with the biggest surprise being Avery getting the nod over both Shareef Miller and Joe Ostman, who were each waived.

Avery suffered a bone bruise in his knee during camp and hasn’t been practicing recently. He was also outplayed by Ostman but the Eagles traded a fourth-round pick for him at the trade deadline last season and likely believe they can get Ostman through waivers.

The team only kept four defensive tackles - Fletcher Cox, Javon Hargrave, Malik Jackson, and Hassan Ridgeway - understanding that Graham and Curry have the versatility to play inside during pass-rushing situations.

Six linebackers were a bit of a surprise with Singleton buttressing the expected five of Nate Gerry, Duke Riley, T.J. Edwards, and rookies Davion Talor and Shaun Bradley.

The news at cornerback was who didn’t make the team, 2017 draft busts Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas. The makeover there started with high-profile offseason pickups Darius Slay and Nickell Robey-Coleman supplementing the mentally tough CBs that Schwartz likes, Avonte Maddox, Cre’Von LeBlanc, and James.

The back end was also heavy with starters Rodney McLeod and Jalen Mills joined by Will Parks, Marcus Epps, rookie K’Von Wallace, and Ford.

Epps, a surprise member of the 53 to many, drew high praise from Roseman as an ascending player and the lone natural single-high option behind McLeod.

“Marcus was the guy who we felt like took a big jump,” said Roseman. “You can see his athleticism, his range. He kind of balances some of the other safeties, their skill set as well and we're really excited about him even though he missed a little bit of time.

"But he's got a really good skill set and we saw that last year when we claimed him and then we feel like he took a jump from year one to year two, so we're excited about him.”

The initial 53 is just that, however, and Roseman noted that the expanded practice squad and new injured reserve rules could keep things in flux but also cautioned the other end of that in that COVID-19 rules mean you can’t just have someone in the building on Monday.

“It's dramatically different,” said Roseman of the 2020 process.”… it'll be interesting to see what happens with (waiver) claims as opposed to in years past, and what people are doing because it's not like you can claim a guy and get him on a plane and he's in your building on Monday.

“You really have to weigh all those things as you're going forward about what's going to happen, if you switch out a guy how long it'll take that guy to be here when will you be ready and things that we've never really had to deal with. And it's okay, you know, there are a lot of people dealing with a lot of worse things than trying to put their football team together and we understand that it will be something that we remember for a long time in this business.”

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 and every Tuesday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SBNation Radio. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

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