Philadelphia Eagles: 2 second-year defenders due for a bigger role in 2021

K’Von Wallace, S

A player whom a lot of fans were rather excited about following last year’s draft, former Clemson product K’Von Wallace barely saw the field during his rookie season.

Buried behind Jalen Mills in the depth chart while simultaneously battling some injuries, Wallace only logged 202 defensive snaps in 2020. He finished the year with 21 tackles – definitely a lackluster rookie season considering how hyped fans were when the Philadelphia Eagles drafted him in the fourth round.

However, with Mills now out of the picture and Rodney McLeod still recovering from a torn ACL, a pathway to playing time has opened up for Wallace this season. There’s still plenty of competition at the position – don’t get me wrong. The Eagles added two veteran safeties in Anthony Harris and Andrew Adams this past offseason to help mitigate the loss of Mills, and rookie linebacker/safety hybrid JaCoby Stevens should be a candidate to see some reps as an in-the-box LB.

However, my guess is that newly hired defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon will do his best to place an emphasis on player development this season, something that he excelled at during his Indianapolis tenure. Wallace is the perfect type of player to groom up as a “Jalen Mills replacement”, and similar to Taylor and the linebacker room, the Eagles safety depth chart is in a position where young players should be getting a lot of playing time.

Both McLeod and Harris are on expiring deals, and the likes of Adams, Grayland Arnold and/or Marcus Epps shouldn’t really threaten Wallace’s status as one of the Eagles’ more promising young defenders.