From All-Pro to NFL VP, Troy Vincent is Eagles' Top No. 23

You didn’t really think we would go against the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, did you?

With 23 days remaining until the season opener in Washington, our jersey countdown to kickoff reaches Troy Vincent, the five-time Pro Bowl cornerback whose best playing days came in Philadelphia.

Long before he was running football ops for the league Vincent was the No. 7 overall pick in the 1992 NFL Draft by the Miami Dolphins out of Wisconsin.

Big things were expected and they were ultimately delivered when Vincent relocated to the Eagles before the 1996 season. It’s not that Vincent was bad in Miami, just the opposite as the Trenton native intercepted 14 passes and was a cornerstone of the Dolphins defense throughout his tenure in South Florida.

Vincent really took off with the Eagles, however, where he spent eight seasons and made five consecutive Pro Bowls from 1999 to 2003 as one of the stars of Jim Johnson’s defense. Vincent was an All-Pro in 2001 and 2002, the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2002, and ultimately named to the franchise’s 75th Anniversary Team as one of the best CBs in franchise history.

Vincent intercepted 28 passes for the Eagles and added 11 forced fumbles as one of the league’s top playmakers outside the numbers. He left in free agency after the 2003 season and played for four more years, three with Buffalo and one with Washington.

After his playing career, Vincent was president of the NFL Players Association from March of 2004 until March of 2008 and then shifted to the other side of the fence, first emerging as the NFL’s Vice President of Active Player Development in February 2010 before being named the head of football ops in 2014.

Current number 23 and No. 2 Overall:

Rodney McLeod: The veteran safety arrived as a free agent in 2016 with a big-money deal, the same year Doug Pederson took over the program and Jim Schwartz put his stamp on the defense.

The result has been a Super Bowl LII championship, the first in franchise history, and three consecutive postseason appearances, with McLeod holding down the fort as the center fielder for most of that time save for much of the 2018 season when he was down with a knee injury.

McLeod was the top lieutenant of Malcolm Jenkins on the back end of the defense and now with the latter back in New Orleans, McLeod is expected to take over as the leader in a secondary with plenty of moving parts.

In his four seasons in Philadelphia to date, McLeod has eight interceptions and four forced fumbles.

Top 3 to wear number 23:

3. Heath Sherman. A sixth-round pick out of Texas A&I by the Eagles in 1989, Sherman stuck around as a backup running back for five seasons, piling up 2,130 rushing yards and topping out with a 685-yard season in 1990. In 1992 Sherman actually led the NFL with 5.2 yards-per-carry while tallying 583 yards.

2. Rodney McLeod. See Above.

1. Troy Vincent. See Above.

Runner-up. Patrick Chung: The three-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots spent the 2013 season with the Eagles between his two stints in Foxborough.

Chip Kelly was on the Oregon staff as the offensive coordinator when Chung was there and brought the safety in on a three-year deal but Bill Davis wasn’t Bill Belichick and couldn’t scheme around Chung’s deficiencies in coverage.

By 2014 Chung was back with the Pats after getting released realizing the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Others: Paul Cuba, Vince Zizak, Phil Poth, Harry Shaub, Bill Wilson, Zed Coston, Raymond George, William Roffler, Ken Keller, Carl Taseff, Mike McClellan, Claude Crabb, Willie Brown, Harry Jones, Roger Williams, Clifford Brooks, Bob Howard, Cedrick Brown, Willie Turral, Derrick Frazier, Ryan Moats, Dimitri Patterson, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and Nolan Carroll,

-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 SportMap Radio. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

Get the latest Eagles news by joining the community. Click "Follow" at the top right of EagleMaven page. Mobile users click the notification bell. And please follow @kracze on Twitter.