Philadelphia Eagles: Please, please, please make Rasul Douglas a safety

After yet another polarizing performance in the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 17 win over the New York Giants, it’s finally time to try Rasul Douglas at safety.

Rasul Douglas seems like a great dude, and his ability to put a bad play behind him should be admired, but after three years with the Philadelphia Eagles, it’s pretty safe to say he’s not a lockdown, shutdown cornerback.

Granted, on any given play, Douglas can look like a franchise caliber-cornerback, as his 6-foot-2, 209-pound frame looks remarkably similar to players of the massive man-press Richard Sherman-type that the NFL has been infatuated with since the Seahawks Legion of Boom days, but it’s just as often fans will visibly grimace as a ball flies over the still-24-year-old’s head for a big-time touchdown.

Both sides of Douglas’ nature were on full display in the Birds’ playoff-clinching win over the New York Giants, with the latter overshadowing the bright spots littered over all 74 of the team’s defensive snaps.

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This is not a new occurrence for Douglas.

For how effective Douglas can be at the line of scrimmage in press coverage, where he can body up usually smaller receivers at the start of their routes, he lacks the closing speed to recover from even one misstep. Now that wouldn’t be an issue if Douglas was perfect over every single play, but asking any player to execute perfectly for 60, 70, sometimes even 80 snaps is just unrealistic.

Douglas’ 4.59 40 is somehow even slower than Sherman’s sluggish 4.54, making his job a tick or two harder than the three-time All-Pro.

But what is the team to do? Douglas is, without a doubt, one of the team’s top six or so defensive backs and does make the team better overall when he’s on the field, but how do you confidently deploy a cornerback who could lose big against a go-route on any given play?

Easy, you move him to safety.

Now to be fair, this isn’t a new idea by any means, as I’ve suggested it early and often over my time covering the team, but how much punishment do the Birds have to take before giving it a shot? As mentioned above, Douglas is a big-bodied playmaker. He’s also a solid ballhawk who seemingly always finds himself around the ball – as evidenced by his five picks and 25 pass breakups in 46 games of action. If given a chance to freestyle a little bit around the middle of the field, Douglas could conceivably be a solid, moveable defensive chess piece.

Isn’t that more valuable than a third, fourth, or even fifth-string outside cornerback?

The Eagles love to deploy the big nickel package, as evidenced by the 298 defensive snaps played by Andrew Sendejo and Marcus Epps combined this season. Douglas is unquestionably a higher-upside player than Sendejo and a better overall player than Epps, so why couldn’t he fill the same role, maybe even a bigger one?

With Rodney McLeod set to become a free agent when the Eagles’ wild postseason ride comes to an end, the team could use a solid safety to play alongside Malcolm Jenkins in 2020, even if Douglas is a questionable fit as a deep, single-high free safety.

But again, that’s not a bad thing.

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Players like Jabrill Peppers, Landon Collins, and Reshad Jones have all been paid handsomely for their ability to influence games as free-roaming, playmaking safeties in the box. Jim Schwartz has had success utilizing this sort of player as recently as this season, so why not go all-in on the position with a homegrown ex-third-round pick, especially with at least one more external cornerback all but guaranteed to join the Philadelphia Eagles in 2020? Maybe Rasul Douglas isn’t Richard Sherman, but his Legion of Boom teammate Kam Chancellor? I’d certainly take that.

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