What exactly is JaCoby Stevens anyway?
Ah, it’s one of 100 questions that can be asked about not just the Eagles, in general, this season, but each of their players, too.
It’s just being asked about Stevens, now, because the third of the Eagles’ three sixth-round picks on May 1 signed his rookie contract on Monday. That leaves only second-round pick Landon Dickerson unsigned among the nine players the Eagles selected in the recent draft.
So again, what exactly is Stevens?
Is he a safety? Is he a linebacker?
“I know that’s one of the things people are questioning because I’m playing linebacker here for the Eagles and I played safety at LSU,” said Stevens last month. “And that’s one thing that I said, I basically played linebacker at LSU as well. It’s just a position title.”
Stevens, who is 6-1, 212, basically played all over the field at LSU and played well enough to earn a number that only some of the best get to wear in the Tigers’ program, and that was the No. 7.
Numbers are a big deal in the Bayou.
Before the Eagles took LSU defensive tackle Bennie Logan in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft – the highest round they had taken a DT until this year’s draft when they took Milton Williams in the third round – Logan wore No. 18 for the Tigers.
Logan is now on staff at LSU.
“He is still very fond of Philly,” said Stevens, who will wear No. 30 for the Eagles. “He’s told me about it, and the things he liked to do in the city. Just like when he wore 18, 7 is just as big a number.”
It is the number that Darryl Stingley, who is expected to be one of the top cornerbacks in the 2022 draft, will wear for LSU this season.
It’s a number that was worn by former Tigers players and NFL standouts Patrick Peterson and Tyrann Mathieu.
Peterson, who Stevens said he idolized as a kid, and Mathieu had positions when they entered the NFL.
Stevens will find one, but it may take time. Or maybe new DC Jonathan Gannon will mix and match him depending on the opponent.
“The things that you go back and watch on film at LSU, those are the same things I’m going to try to do here for the Eagles,” Stevens said. “I’m always going to be a smart player. I’m going to be a player that plays with a lot of passion, a player that’s going to play fast and be very explosive on the field.
“I think my game translates, regardless of what position and what level. I’m just excited to be here and show those coaches and scouts that defended me and drafted me here are right.”
Whatever position he lines up in, the bottom line is that Stevens is in the NFL, which is the culmination of a dream that began when he was 5- or 6-years-old and spending the summer with his grandmother, a woman he calls “Big Mama.”
“We were talking, and I said, ‘I’m going to play in the NFL,’” said Stevens. “Big Mama was like, ‘No you’re not.’ She’s not saying that I actually couldn’t do it, but at 5, 6, you want (them) to be President, or you want to be a neurosurgeon. Things just changed from the next day to the next.”
So Big Mama told her grandson that if he became an NFL player, she would get the logo of the team tattooed on her shoulder.
“I told her that she doesn’t have to get a tattoo,” he said. “She claims she’s still going to do it, so we’ll see.”
It only has to be a tattoo of the Eagles logo. Not the position Stevens will play.
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