A Solid Start For One Eagles Rookie

During the first Eagles’ OTA practice open to the media, perhaps the most interesting back-and-forth at the safety position.

Five different players were given first-team reps as Vic Fangio and Christian Parker try to see what they have at the position opposite Reed Blankenship.

The churn was elevated due to the absence of Blankenship, who is reportedly dealing with a minor medical issue that is of little concern. In the meantime, it added valuable reps to the plates of others attempting to break through after the offseason trade of playmaker C.J. Gardner-Johnson to Houston.

The two top candidates are expected to be third-year safety Sydney Brown and rookie second-round pick Drew Mukuba, and that’s the pairing that got the first rep in 7-on-7s.

Eventually, Tristin McCollum mixed in for significant reps as well, and both Andre Sam’ and Lewis Cine got nominal looks with the first team.

From a volume standpoint, Brown was the leader with the first team, while it looked like there was a clear effort to see Mukuba with as many different partners as possible.

In the line 11-on-11 period, McCollum seemed to get the most work next to Brown.

Reading those tea leaves is probably dangerous, though, because when you see such a heavy rotation, it’s about distributing reps more than focusing on a depth chart.

Schematically, Brown and Mukuba got a lot of single high work, while McCollum was the one dropping down the most.

It was mostly generic umbrella coverage that forced quarterback Jalen Hurts to check down quite a bit. The most impressive Hurts hookup was to Jahan Dotson on a comeback route on Quinyon Mitchell with little safety involvement.

Backup QB Tanner McKee stretched the field a little more with a nice Tampa-2 hole throw to Danny Gray in between Kelee Rindo and a late-arriving Mukuba.

Sam’ may have had the best defensive play of the day, breaking up a potential completion to tight end Grant Calcaterra.

Overall, the football barely hit the ground in an environment that is heavily skewed toward the offense, with only a handful of incompletions, and two of those were drops.

The conclusion here is that Mukuba, the 64th overall pick in April’s draft, passed his first test and looks the part of a coverage safety, which is what Fangio ultimately wants for his defense.