Philadelphia Eagles: Essang Bassey could be a steal on Day 3

If the Philadelphia Eagles miss out on the first tier of cornerbacks atop the 2020 NFL Draft, Essang Bassey could be an intriguing option on Day 3.

Jim Schwartz has a thing for cornerbacks who play the ball in the air.

Since Schwartz signed up to coordinate the Philadelphia Eagles‘ defense in 2016, Howie Roseman has consistently signed, drafted, and traded for cornerbacks with loose hips, plus-agility, and most importantly, a pension for breaking up passes in the air to compete for spots in the defensive rotation.

While the results haven’t always been pretty, as slower cornerbacks like Jalen Mills and Rasul Douglas still struggled to compete on the outside in man coverage, these players received (maybe too many) chances because of their short memories and willingness to fight for the ball every time in came their way.

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So needless to say, if the Eagles opt to select a cornerback atop the 2020 NFL Draft, it’s going to be someone with good recovery speed, side-to-side agility, and a ton of recorded PBUs to their credit.

But what about in the later rounds? Are there any options worth considering?

Some, but not a ton.

You see, cornerbacks who can keep with their man in, um, man coverage are incredibly valuable in the modern NFL and are thus drafted accordingly. If you can play man coverage, pick off passes, and run a sub-4.5 40 you’ll probably get drafted in the first round, maybe even in the top-10. However, if you’re a tad slower, have stone hands, or run slower, then yeah, a slide to Day 2 or even Day 3 is borderline inevitable.

That doesn’t mean these players aren’t good mind you, they just need to find the right scheme to optimize their skill sets.

If Essang Bassey is lucky, the perfect scheme to optimize his skills belongs to Schwartz and the Eagles.

Measuring in at 5-foot-9, 191 pounds with sub-8-inch hands, Bassey is a college outside cornerback who can’t conceivably play the position in most NFL schemes due to his slight size and average frame. He is, however, a solid coverage reader, a hard hitter, and more importantly, one of the best pass breakup artists in the 2020 NFL Draft.

From 2017-19, his three starting seasons at Wake Forest, Bassey recorded 42 passes defensed, five interceptions, 208 total tackles, and a touchdown as the Demon Deacons’ top defensive player.

For those keeping track at home, that’s more passes defensed than Jeff Gladney, Jeff Okudah, Kristian Fulton, and C.J. Henderson.

Had he picked off a few more passes, played primarily in the slot, or played for an SEC school like LSU or Alabama, it’s entirely possible pundits would be much higher on Bassey as a Tyrann Mathieu-style do-it-all switchblade defender. Fortunately for the Eagles, he didn’t, and because of these black marks on his record, the 21-year-old Columbus, Georgia product will all but surely drop to Day 3 of the 2020 NFL Draft – maybe even the back half of Day 3 at that.

If you can get a cornerback with 45 career pass breakups in the fifth, or even sixth round, that’s good value regardless of size, speed, or athletic testing.

While it would be irresponsible to expect Bassey to come in and start for the team as a rookie late-round pick, as he needs work to shore up his tackling and learn to play on the inside, his competitiveness, 4.46 speed, and sub-7 second 3 cone drill highlight a player with a ton of upside.

Heck, the Eagles are one of the few teams in the NFL who could actually give Bassey a chance to start on the outside – just ask Avonte Maddox.

You can’t coach up 5-foot-9, so Bassey will all but certainly be a bad matchup against bigger wide receivers like D.K. Metcalf, Mike Evans, Julio Jones, but that’s why the Eagles traded for Darius Slay, to neutralize bigger number one receivers. Even if Bassey is only a part-time player, or a slot only cornerback, he’s certainly a more talented cornerback than players like Craig James, Ryan Lewis, and 32-year-old Orlando Scandrick, all of whom played meaningful snaps for the Eagles in 2019.

In a lot of ways, Bassey’s game is reminiscent of Cre’von LeBlanc, that is, if LeBlanc ran a sub-4.5 40-yard dash.

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If the Philadelphia Eagles miss out on a cornerback in the first or second day of the 2020 NFL Draft, it’s going to be hard to find a player who fits their scheme, let alone can do so with starter upside. Essang Bassey is one of the few players who checks both of those boxes, and if he’s there in the sixth-round when the Eagles make their eighth and final selection, he could be an absolute steal.

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