Philadelphia Eagles: Rasul Douglas’ time as a starter is winding down
The Philadelphia Eagles will more than likely send Rasul Douglas to the bench when the entire cornerbacks unit gets healthy again.
The 2019 NFL season hasn’t been great so far for the Philadelphia Eagles. While the team has struggled all across the board, one unit on the roster has stood out the most, though. And not for a good reason. As we know, the Eagles have perhaps the worst cornerbacks in the game.
As they continuously get torched on a weekly basis, the Birds were looking to upgrade the team by potentially making a trade for Jalen Ramsey. Now that he’s out of the question, the Eagles are reaching for their Plan B, which means they are sitting back and holding out hope that when the entire unit gets healthy, the find a resurgence.
Well, this week, they could potentially have two more guys back in the mix with Jalen Mills and Ronald Darby planning to get back on the field. Many believe that Mills and/or Darby could help, but others think they shouldn’t just acquire a starting job right away. Unfortunately for those who hold that belief, you won’t get exactly what you want.
The Darby-Mills duo is back
During the 2017 season, Ronald Darby and Jalen Mills were the Eagles’ starting cornerbacks when healthy. Then, during the 2018 season, those two started the year off as starters once again before injuries set in, of course. Now that they are both potentially returning this week, Doug Pederson was asked if they will both get their starting positions back.
Without hesitation, Pederson answered with, “I think so.” Therefore, the current starting tandem on the outside, which consists of Rasul Douglas and Sidney Jones (and sometimes Craig James), is going to go away. Is that the correct move? Probably not. But it’s Pederson and Jim Schwartz’s world, and we are all just living in it.
Douglas’ days as a starter are limited
Last week’s performance put a bad taste in everybody’s mouth when it came to Rasul Douglas and the secondary. Since Douglas got burnt on not one, but two deep passes — everybody lost their patience with the third-year cornerback.
However, many didn’t acknowledge at the time that both, Rodney McLeod and Malcolm Jenkins failed to issue help when they were supposed to on those plays. And even Jenkins took blame after the game. If you take away those two deep plays, plus a couple of plays in the first half of Week 1 as well, you could make an argument that Douglas is actually having a decent season.
This isn’t shocking considering he was one of the best cornerbacks on the field for the Eagles last year, too, when injuries occurred. We know Douglas’ weaknesses have everything to do with speed, but he hasn’t had much of chance to play to his style, which is physical, pressing at the line.
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At this point, it’s pretty much confirmed that Douglas is not in Jim Schwartz’s favor as their styles do not mesh well. We figured that back in 2017, and we pretty much know that now since he will get a fast-pass ticket straight to the bench when Darby and Mills return.
The hope is that Darby, who has struggled the last two years now, will be on a short leash — but that’s far from a guarantee. Clearly, the Eagles have their favorites, and Rasul Douglas has struggled to become one of them.