Are The Eagles Preparing To Travel CBs

To date, Philadelphia Eagles’ second-year cornerback Quinyon Mitchell has mainly been stationed on the left side of the defense after taking the NFL by storm as a rookie cornerback playing on the right side.

The difference this season is the departure of veteran six-time Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay, who held down the left side of the field for five seasons in Philadelphia.

Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio downplayed the idea that the best CBs play the left side because most quarterbacks are right-handed and that’s their dominant side.

“That's kind of proven to not be true over the years,” Fangio said.

OK, so why is Mitchell flipping sides with third-year pro Kelee Ringo and veteran free-agent signing Adoree’ Jackson handling most of the work on the right side?

"If we ever get to the point where we want to match [Mitchell] on his particular receiver, he's got to know how to play both sides if we want to play him at left or versus right, so we'll figure that out on a weekly basis," the veteran DC said.

Fangio has had traveling CBs in the past “when warranted.”

“There's two factors,” he said. “One, is there a guy worth doing on the other team worth doing it and two can your guys do it because there's a lot involved with doing it defensively and I've had years in a row where we never did it then I've had years where we did it every week and so again, it'll be an evolution.”

Mitchell has already proven himself on the right side and is still taking the occasional snap there and it has been notable that Ringo, Jackson, and Eli Ricks have gotten reps on each side over the first two days of camp with the second- and third-team units.

Clearly, the Eagles are preparing their corners to travel if need be, and the one shadowing the kinds of receivers who could put that strategy into play is Mitchell.

“It’s been good. Working both sides since OTAs,” Mitchell said after practice Thursday. “I feel good and whatever they ask me. I’m gonna do it.”