The Philadelphia Eagles have embraced the coverage linebacker
As the NFL becomes more and more pass-happy, the Philadelphia Eagles’ commitment to cultivating coverage linebackers remains cutting edge.
Defensive backs are replacing linebackers in the NFL.
As teams become more and more committed to winning games through the air, the time-worn tradition of fielding two-to-three 250 pound-plus backers in base defensive packages is all but over: just ask our friends over at Pro Football Focus.
Fortunately, the Philadelphia Eagles are forerunners in this new trend of coverage-focused back sevens.
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After releasing Zach Brown following an ugly showing against the Minnesota Vikings (fun fact, he is now a member of the Arizona Cardinals), the Eagles don’t have a single linebacker on their active roster who weighs at least 250-pounds – with their biggest backer, Nigel Bradham, measuring in at 6-foot-2, 241-pounds.
And funny enough, Bradham is the only traditional linebacker in the team’s starting defense.
That’s right, both Kamu Grugier-Hill and Nathan Gerry came to the Eagles as late-round college safeties. They were then converted to NFL linebackers in the hopes of adding some much-needed defensive versatility.
While neither player started as a rookie, or even as a second-year pro, the duo became more and more comfortable playing at a heavier weight and are now fixtures of Jim Schwartz‘s defensive front.
But Schwartz hasn’t stopped there.
You see, while dropping an ex-safety into coverage play after play is noticeably more effective than doing the same with an ‘old-school’ thumper, Schwartz has used 2019 signee Andrew Sendejo as a quasi-linebacking box-safety for virtually all of his 226 defensive snaps – despite weighing in at 210 pounds.
Now one would assume that committing big minutes to a pair of college safeties and an actual NFL safety would cause the team to struggle against the run. Fortunately, that has not been the case, as the Eagles have remained among the best-run stuffers in the league despite fielding one of the smallest – not to mention cheapest – linebacking corps in the league.
Because the Birds almost exclusively rush the passer with their defensive lineman, their linebackers spend virtually the entire game dropped into (mostly zone) coverage. This eliminates the need to commit roster sports to second-level pass-rushing specialists and makes the scheme much less predicated on a specific player’s talents.
While smart scheming isn’t a replacement for having a supreme talent like Luke Kuechly or Bobby Wagner, it does limit largely mask that need in a sport with a hard salary cap.
Eagles will be just fine without Josh Gordon. dark. Next
With only a handful of elite, do-it-all three-down linebackers spread out across the 32 teams in the NFL, identifying an emerging trend and jumping on it is a big reason why the Philadelphia Eagles are one of the most forward-thinking teams in the NFL. The real question becomes, how much will non-pass rushing linebackers like Kamu Grugier-Hill and Nathan Gerry demand when they hit free agency in 2020 and 2021 respectively?