Eagles' S Competition Is Heating Up

Nestled into a quick 57-minute Eagles practice at the NovaCare Complex Tuesday morning was an unexpected development.

Instead of Sydney Brown lining up opposite Reed Blankenship on the back end of Vic Fangio's defense in nickel looks, rookie second-round pick Drew Mukuba jogged onto the field for the first rep.

It was the first time Mukuba started with the ones since Day 2 of camp. A shoulder injury to the rookie had seemingly paused what was supposed to be a hotly contested battle with most tabbing the Texas product as the odds-on favorite, a sentiment tied to the idea Fangio would prefer a natural coverage safety if the veteran DC had his druthers.

Mukuba, though, missed team drills and six consecutive practices and was held out of last week's preseason win over Cincinnati.

Considering that Brown subbed in for Mukuba on the third play of the first series, and there was a significant rotation throughout the rest of the practice, it didn't necessarily feel like a sea change or anything ominous for Brown.

However, if Fangio does actually want to eventually get to Mukuba as the preferred option, that GPS will be hard for Brown to override.

“I know my time is going to come, so I’ve just got to be patient and sooner or later, I’ll be out there,” a confident Mukuba said after practice.

While absent Mukuba tried to maximize his mental reps and claimed that he feels "very comfortable" on the field.

“I feel like I’m confident out there making the right calls, knowing what to do, knowing where I’m supposed to be at, knowing where other guys are supposed to be at,” Mukuba said. “Just me knowing that, me feeling that confident, just tells me that I’m doing the right things and I’m heading the right way.”

As is his typical M.O., Fangio likes to throw a lot at young players and scale back to what they do best when the time is right.

In the case of Mukuba, that means learning safety and playing inside opposite Cooper DeJean in the Eagles' dime package.

“It gives us an option to do a lot of things with an extra DB in there, whether that’s blitzing, whether that’s [in] coverage, just mix a lot of things up, I feel like, with that role,” Mukuba said when discussing his dime responsibilities. “I’ve embraced that role. I’m obviously trying to learn and trying to grow from that role, because I didn’t really play much of dime in college.”