The Philadelphia Eagles struggled towards the end of last season because of how horrendous the secondary was. They had veterans like Darius Slay and James Bradberry on the field, but they struggled. The defense is what caused them to end the season in a total spin.
It looked as if the Eagles were going to be a serious Super Bowl contender after they started the season 10-1 but finished the season 11-6 as a wild card team and lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first playoff game. This offseason, general manager Howie Roseman made some fixes in the secondary by drafting players.
The Philadelphia Eagles used its 22nd overall pick on Quinyon Mitchell, a cornerback from Toledo. In the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft, Philadelphia traded up to the 40th overall selection to draft cornerback/safety Cooper DeJean from Iowa.
General manager Howie Roseman of the Philadelphia Eagles hopes those selections pay off. The only other time Philadelphia took multiple defensive backs in an NFL Draft in the first two rounds was back in 2002. He told Tim McManus, an ESPN Staff Writer about the secondary by saying:
“I think we’re all a product of our experiences. Obviously those guys played for us in the Super Bowl, and I think that Coach Reid has always done a great job of being a year ahead. I think that’s one of the lessons that I got to learn from him working with him, for him. So I think from our perspective, obviously that’s always in the back of the mind when we’re making picks. At the forefront of it is guys that can help the football team right now.”
The Philadelphia Eagles Have the Talent To Make a Super Bowl Run But Will They?
The Eagles last season felt unstoppable until everything down spiraled. Everyone was calling for head coach Nick Siranni to be fired after he lost both Shane Steichen to the Indianapolis Colts and Rich Gannon to the Arizona Cardinals. Will see if the assistant coaches can be better this season.
They have the offensive talent to get to the big game, but the defense will once again be a question mark. General manager Howie Roseman also added:
“We wanted to create incredible competition at all positions. That was a position that we hadn’t addressed a lot early in the draft. We felt like that we still had some veteran guys on the roster and that we were going to get back … but we wanted to add some youth.”
Losing Fletcher Cox and Jason Kelce to retirement this offseason will not be easy to replace because of their leadership. However, the Eagles will need new leaders to emerge. Not only does that hang in the balance for 2024, but so does the development of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in the secondary because they were viewed as very good defensive backs entering this draft class.