The Philadelphia Eagles should take a chance on LB Deone Buccannon

The Philadelphia Eagles might as well mix up their LB room.

The Philadelphia Eagles are winless through the first three weeks of the 2020 season, and they quite possibly have the worst linebacking room in the entire NFL. Nate Gerry has consistently been picked on week in and week out, Duke Riley is a glorified special teamer, and rookies Davion Taylor and Shaun Bradley still can’t even see the field.

Opposing quarterbacks have a passer rating of 147.5 (!) and 109.7 when targeting Gerry and Riley in coverage, and both have been ineffective in the run game as well (zero TFLs between the two). Last year’s Twitter darling TJ Edwards has had little opportunity within the base defense, but is still getting exposed when asked to drop back in coverage (opposing QB passer rating of 109.4). Edwards forced a fumble on special teams, but once again hasn’t recorded any sort of big play on the defensive side of things.

Needless to say, the Philadelphia Eagles LB core is really, really bad. Sean McVay had an absolute field day picking apart the group during the Ram’s Week 2 blowout win over Philly, and 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan projects to do the same

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At some point, the team has to acknowledge that a change needs to occur. While my proposed solution is about the least eye-popping one out there, the chance of him being any worse than Gerry and Riley is almost impossible at this point in time.

A former first-round pick back in 2014, Deone Buccanon was somewhat ahead of his time. An undersized safety/linebacker hybrid coming out of college, a lot of scouts at the time felt he could revolutionize the position, similar to that of how people view this year’s #8 overall pick Isaiah Simmons. At just 6-1, 211lbs Buccanon was too small to be an in-the-box LB all the time, and his coverage skills weren’t good enough to see him take permanent snaps back at safety.

Arizona experimented hard with the Washington State graduate, moving him all over the place from SS, MLB, to OLB. Across five seasons and 70 games with the Cardinals he recorded 406 tackles, 27 TFLS, 12 passes defensed, 7 forced fumbles, 7 sacks, and just 2 interceptions. Not horrible numbers, but nothing worth his initial first-round status.

Following his uneventful tenure with the Cardinals, Buccanon bounced around the league quite a bit, failing to stick with a new club. He spent time with Tampa Bay, New York (Giants), and lastly the Atlanta Falcons. Bucannon spent this year’s offseason with Atlanta, but failed to make the team’s final 53-man, instead being relegated to the practice squad. On September 29th, he was outright released from the practice squad as well.

Buccanon undoubtedly wouldn’t “fix” the Philadelphia Eagles LB woes, but it would be a step in the right direction. The former first-round pick has that safety/linebacker flexibility that Jim Schwartz appears to be in love with, and he would likely do a far better job in coverage than Gerry, Riley, or Edwards.

The Eagles made a move earlier in the week that really caught my eye, signing Hakeem Butler to play tight end. It was a low-risk/high-reward type move, that could ultimately pay dividends in the longterm. When you’re 0-2-1 with one of the highest payrolls in all of football, taking these types of chances on “reclamation projects” is exactly what you have you be doing. If Butler sticks, then you found yourself a serviceable backup tight end on an extremely cheap contract. If he doesn’t stick, then you simply release him and you’re back to square one.

The same goes for Buccanon. It’s incredibly unlikely that he comes in and rejuvenates his career in Philadelphia, but you simply never know. On paper, he’s a former first-round talent who in theory fits Schwartz’ scheme just as well as someone like Gerry does. If he can come in and do a better job, the Eagles would have found themselves a potential starting linebacker moving forward without having to burn precious assets in acquiring one. If Buccanon struggles like he did in Tampa and New York, you simply release him. No harm no foul.

With a rebuild on the horizon for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021, the team has to get creative in building their roster. A lot of names we’ve gotten used to seeing on Sundays won’t be here next year, and Howie Roseman needs to start poking around for cheap replacements.