Philadelphia Eagles are shuffling their secondary once again
Keeping up with what’s going on with the Philadelphia Eagles secondary may require a little bit of work.
The next time you check out a Philadelphia Eagles game, make sure you pick up a game day program. You’re probably going to need it. The Eagles have their home opener coming up against the New York Giants, and this team looks slightly different than it did when the season kicked off on September 10th.
In their first game, the Eagles lost their best cornerback, Ronald Darby. Now, in a manner of days, they’ve lost three safeties to hamstring injuries (Rodney McLeod, Malcolm Jenkins and Corey Graham), and neither is expected to play Sunday.
On Wednesday, they perused the waiver wire, and they added safety Trae Elston.
Now what?
Remember when we talked about all of these versatile players that the Eagles had on defense? Well, expect the mad scientist and defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz to really get creative now. He may not be drawing in the dirt with his finger yet, but it’s getting close to that.
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Believe it or not, the Eagles have a ton of options for this secondary. Safety Malcolm Jenkins’ ability to play slot corner has been mentioned a time or two. What hasn’t been talked about as often is the fact that the Eagles may be leaning towards placing linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill in the back-end of the defense.
Grugier-Hill played safety while playing his college ball for Eastern Illinois. Wednesday he spent some time getting re-acclimated with the position at practice. So far, there’s no reason to believe Philly won’t continue to give him some work there as they prepare for Sunday’s home opener against the Giants.
“It’s been awhile, but with the injuries now they’ve obviously prepared me for that” said Grugier-Hill on the possibility of playing some safety. “If anything happens I’m ready to be that guy. I’m excited. I’m definitely excited. Hopefully the injured guys get back soon. But I’m definitely prepared for that if they ask me to do that.”
Newly acquired Dexter McDougle and veteran Patrick Robinson are expected to see some time at the slot. Rookie Rasul Douglas saw significant playing time at safety on Sunday and did so with some success. He figures to see more action there on this coming Sunday as well.