Philadelphia Eagles: Michael Jacquet deserves a longer look at cornerback

The Philadelphia Eagles might have found a good one in Michael Jacquet.

When Darius Slay went out of the Philadelphia Eagles‘ unfortunately programmed Sunday night prime time bout against the Dallas Cowboys, it looked like disaster was about to strike.

With Avonte Maddox already pressed back into action and the only other cornerback with any experience playing outside in Jim Schwartz’s scheme, Craig James, inactive, it looked like the Eagles would be forced to kick Nickell Robey-Coleman back onto the perimeter – which, in case you’ve somehow forgotten, hasn’t worked all too well thus far this season.

But, in a fit of brilliance, that wasn’t the route Schwartz opted to take.

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No, call it a fortune byproduct of facing off against arguably the worst quarterback in the NFL, but when the chips were down with a 7-6 lead, the Eagles called upon number 38, Michael Jacquet, to ice out an uninspired Cowboys club. And honestly, the results were pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Granted, it’s not like Jacquet came into the game and instantly bloomed into a star before our very eyes – this wasn’t Travis Fulgham 2.0 – but the 23-year-old UDFA out of Louisiana played fairly well – surrendering zero catches on 38 snaps with four tackles and a pass defensed to his name.

Measuring in at 6-foot-2, 201 pounds, with freaky long arms, Jacquet has the prototypical build for a modern-day NFL press cornerback. Granted, he’s only been playing cornerback since 2018, as the Beaumont, Texas native initially committed to play wide receiver for the Ragin’ Cajuns and played his first two seasons in Lafayette on the offensive side of the ball, but aesthetically speaking, Jacquet didn’t look out of place on an NFL field in his debut. He also didn’t look out of place in coverage, as he was placed on both Michael Gallup, CeeDee Lamb, and Amari Cooper multiple times and held all three without a catch.

If you weren’t really paying attention or simply don’t have every player’s number memorized, it’s entirely possible you might have missed Jacquet even entering the game for Slay, as the duo looked surprisingly similar dropped into coverage.

But what does this mean moving forward? Could Jacquet push Maddox for a spot on the outside and finally give the team a pair of consistently competition cornerbacks with NRC and LeBlanc sandwiched in between? Well, first and foremost, the Eagles would actually need to sign Jacquet to an NFL contract, as he’s currently on the team’s practice squad and can only be elevated one more time this season, but based on the team’s decision to release Jason Croom without a corresponding move announced before the 2020 NFL trade deadline, that appears to be imminent.

From there, I imagine the team will keep Jacquet on their game-day roster moving forward and allow him to fill the third outside cornerback role that Rasul Douglas filled over the past few seasons. With Slay only playing an average of 85 percent of the team’s defensive snaps each game, there are opportunities for Jacquet to earn some playing time here and there, even if the team remains otherwise healthy.

Sidebar: Did you know the Ragin’ Cajuns use a chili pepper as an apostrophe in both their logo and on their helmets? That’s totally radical, dude.

I know it’s just one game, and 38 snaps is far from a suitable sample size to make any sort of definitive judgment one way or another, but as things presently stand, Jacquet has an overall defensive grade of 75.6 according to Pro Football Focus – the fifth-highest mark of any defender on the roster behind Brandon Graham, Marcus Epps, Craig James, and Vinny Curry.

Is it a bit odd to see Epps, James, and even Curry with higher grades than Slay? Most definitely, but don’t hold that against Jacquet.

Next. Will Parks has played himself off the trade block. dark

With Avonte Maddox, Nickell Robey-Coleman, Cre’Von LeBlanc, and Jalen Mills all set to hit free agency in the spring of 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles need to identify which players are keepers and which players aren’t moving forward. If Michael Jacquet can continue to dominate in a bigger role moving forward, then heck yeah, maybe he is the defensive answer to Travis Fulgham after all, but if not, at least the Eagles have another promising young player they can continue to develop over the next few seasons. That’s a more than solid return for a UDFA who only earned $90,000 in guaranteed money with a $15,000 signing bonus coming out of college.

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