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When the Eagles moved Jalen Mills to safety, the raging debate over his replacement centered on only two players: Sidney Jones and Avonte Maddox.
Wait a minute. Did Rasul Douglas get traded in the offseason? No, he certainly did not. And the former third-round pick out of West Virginia has reported to camp with a certifiable chip on his shoulder. Douglas recently claimed he’s in a “great space mentally” and the cornerback’s workout videos have shown how hard he’s been honing his trade.
If it’s indeed an open competition for the starting job, as Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz indicated, do not sleep on Douglas winning it. He has already received two huge votes of confidence this offseason — one from his footwork trainer, Rischad Whitfield, and another from the man he hopes to start opposite from in Week 1, Darius Slay.
“Rasul is a great guy, man, hard worker, got a lot of jokes,” Slay told reporters on Monday. “I told him I’ll teach him everything I know because like I said I want him to be a sponge to me. I want him to feed off whatever I got and learn everything he can.”
“I was in the same position he was in, with guys like [former Lions cornerbacks] Rashean Mathis, Chris Houston,” Slay continued. “All the older guys and I just sponge ’em. I’m in the vet mode, Year 8 and he’s in Year 4 … I just want to put him in a position where he can be the best he can be.”
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Schwartz Addresses Open Competition at CB
The Eagles are going to put the best 11 guys they have on the field. It’s not exactly rocket science to figure that out. More importantly, they want hybrid players in a revamped secondary looking to bounce back after a roller-coaster ride in 2019.
Schwartz mentioned Slay would travel and shadow the opposing team’s top receiver but he didn’t rule out the Pro Bowl corner seeing some snaps in the slot. Nickell Robey-Coleman will most likely hold down the nickel corner spot but he’ll be asked to turn outside in certain looks and formations, too.
Considering Douglas’ versatility — he has seen time at safety and nickel corner over the years, although his struggles have been well-documented — the 24-year-old will get a shot to carve out a role for himself in 2020. While his critics might say Douglas lacks the “long speed” necessary to keep up with fast wideouts, that may not matter. He was getting beat due to footwork and leverage issues, per Whitfield.
“He’s going to be the starter coming out of training camp,” Whitfield said of Douglas. “If you watch Rasul, everybody thought he was just getting beat by speed. He really wasn’t. He was getting beat before the receiver turned on the speed. It was a footwork and leverage issue. His technique was good. His hips weren’t as fluid. We’ve been working so hard.”
It’s maybe not a great sign that Schwartz didn’t mention Douglas by name when evaluating his corners earlier this month. Then again, the implication was that the older guys on the roster will have an edge over the newcomers and rookies. The starting spot opposite Slay is very much up for grabs.
“There will be open competition there,” Schwartz said. “We’ll have a lot of different guys. One of the reasons for a lot of the things that have happened to us over the years is we’ve had a lot of different guys play because of injuries in the secondary and that’s tough during the season but what it’s done is it’s given us a lot of different options — guys that have played a lot of football.”
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