Will Parks, Flashing his Versatility, is 'Everywhere'

Forget easing in, the safety, signed during free agency in the offseason, has been thrown into the deep end by the Philadelphia coaching staff

“I’m everywhere.”

Forget easing in, Will Parks, the North Philadelphia native and former Germantown High School star who returned home in the offseason after signing a one-year deal with the Eagles has been thrown into the deep end by the Philadelphia coaching staff.

In fact, according to Parks, he's "everywhere" on the back end of the Eagles defense.

Billed as a safety, Parks fits into the positionless player narrative that Jim Schwartz has embraced on the defensive side of the football, perhaps as the potential replacement for the ever-so versatile Malcolm Jenkins.

“That’s kind of been my motto,” said Parks during a videoconference call on Sunday afternoon. “That’s what I take pride in. The last few practices I’ve been lining up all over the field. That just speaks to the way they expect my role (to be)."

Parks is off and running, lining up at strong safety and free safety, presumably as the top backup to both Jalen Mills and Rodney McLeod, as well as working in the slot, likely in Schwartz’s big nickel package, all despite a truncated, virtual offseason where the concern was a pandemic, not the passing game.

In many ways, COVID-19 is forcing NFL teams to default to continuity and what’s familiar to them.

The Pittsburgh Steelers - with three head coaches over the past 50-plus years, all who’ve won Super Bowls and current coach Mike Tomlin an almost certainty to join Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher in the Hall of Fame - are living and breathing proof that continuity is always better than the alternative in the league.

In a normal season, however, many other factors can swing things in a different direction even if a calm and steady approach proves better the larger the sample size gets.

In 2020, where the pads won’t go on until Monday, with teams having just two weeks of real work to prepare for the upcoming season, it’s almost unanimous that the clubs with the fewest moving parts will have a bigger advantage than usual.

The Eagles seem to believe the same as everyone else in that regard but the exception often proves the rule and as a five-year veteran already used to moving around in Denver, it’s pretty clear that Philadelphia feels comfortable in throwing quite a bit on Parks’ plate.

“It's not too hard on me,” said Parks. “If it's important to you, you know, you dial in your playbook. ... you'll ask questions, you'll ask questions to help make your job easier. You know what I mean, so football is important to me.

“... I’m here to help them win a championship.”

Parks is also here to help his hometown as well, just like Jenkins tried to do as a transplant who fell in love with Philadelphia.

Like many, Parks is concerned about the spark in gun violence around the city and the impact no high school sports may have on impressionable youth.

"That's a pandemic within itself," said Parks, of the gun violence in the city. “... "These kids don't have football, so now you look at it like, 'What's next?' We all know what's going on outside right now. These kids are just killing each other left and right, number two in the murder rate, it's unbelievable."

"We can't keep talking about it," said Parks. "We got to do something about it."

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

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