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Five Defensive Senior Bowl Standouts Who Could Intrigue Eagles

The Eagles would certainly help their roster by taking one or more of the players who shined during Senior Bowl week
Ed Kracz|
Five Defensive Senior Bowl Standouts Who Could Intrigue Eagles
Five Defensive Senior Bowl Standouts Who Could Intrigue Eagles

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Philadelphia Eagles

The Senior Bowl is over and that means the draft season has arrived.

The all-star game played in Mobile, Ala., usually is the starting line in the race to the draft. It is for seniors only, so the field isn’t as expansive as it will be at the NFL Scouting Combine, which begins on March 1 in Indianapolis.

Here are five defensive players from the Senior Bowl that, after watching practice from afar and the game from my couch, impressed me, and at least one if not more should be taken by the Eagles in April’s draft:

EDGE Jermaine Johnson, Florida State. He practiced for just two days then bowed out, saying he showed everything he needed to show. Indeed, he did. By all accounts, Johnson climbed into the top 20 with two strong days of flexing his pass-rush mettle.

Eric Edholm of Yahoo Sports wrote about a one-on-one matchup between Johnson, who is 6-5, 259 pounds, and Kentucky’s Darian Kinnard, also 6-5, but more than 60 pounds heavier at 324 pounds, called for at the end of a Tuesday practice by National Team head coach Duce Staley because Johnson and Kinnard had dominated all day long.

Johnson won the first rep with speed and power. There were two more reps between the two, one that was a stalemate, the other won by Kinnard.

These two may not have seen the last of each other as both will be starters with their future NFL teams.

DT Travis Jones, Connecticut. The Huskies weren’t very good during Jones’ four years. In fact, they were downright terrible, winning just four games. 

The records? 1-11 in 2018 and 2019. The 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19. Last year, 2-10.

Yet, the 6-4, 326-pound has risen above the rubble and may have put himself in a position to be a first-round pick. The UConn program, which recently hired Jim Mora, Jr., as its next head coach, has produced two first-round picks in its history – CB Byron Jones in 2015 (Cowboys) and RB Donald Brown in 2009 (Colts).

The Eagles could use an interior presence like Jones, who had 4.5 sacks last season, on a defensive line that is being slowly rebuilt. If he is there in the second round when the Eagles pick at No. 51, he makes a ton of sense.

DB Tariq Castro-Fields, Penn State. Cornerback Coby Bryant dominated much of the conversations, and he had a good week, while Castro-Fields flew under the radar a bit. Castro-Fields did well in one-on-ones throughout the week and was measured with a 31 1/8 reach, making him one of the lengthier cornerbacks at the Senior Bowl. T

The 6-0, 194-pound PSU product has speed, having been clocked at 4.4, and was excellent in press coverage in Mobile and throughout his college career.

He is a bit on the older side, having turned 23 in January, but his experience could put him in contention to earn a big role with the Eagles sooner rather than later.

S Jalen Pitre, Baylor. The Eagles have a safety need, and Pitre may have put himself in the front office conversation with a strong week after a solid career at Baylor. Being a bit undersized at 5-11, 196, doesn’t hamper his physicality. He can come up and tackle, help on the edge and, though he played a lot in the slot, he is very good at playing in space.

LB Damone Clark, LSU. All the linebacker buzz in this draft belongs to Georgia’s Nakobe Dean and Utah’s Devin Lloyd, but Clark may have put himself in a position to be LB3. Clark, who is 6-2, 240, picked up the American Team’s best LB award during his week in Mobile.

The Eagles stocked up on LSU players this past year, trading for cornerback Kary Vincent, Jr., a few months ago and drafting safety JaCoby Stevens last year in the sixth round and converting him to linebacker. Clark would give them a ready-made LB who can fly sideline to sideline and has a wingspan over 78. He may not be a Day 1 starter, but Clark would help immediately on special teams given his speed.

MORE: Five Offensive Senior Bowl Standouts Who Could Intrigue Eagles

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.

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Ed Kracz
ED KRACZ

Ed Kracz has been covering the Eagles full-time for over a decade and has written about Philadelphia sports since 1996. He wrote about the Phillies in the 2008 and 2009 World Series, the Flyers in their 2010 Stanely Cup playoff run to the finals, and was in Minnesota when the Eagles secured their first-ever Super Bowl win in 2017. Ed has received multiple writing awards as a sports journalist, including several top-five finishes in the Associated Press Sports Editors awards.

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