Philadelphia Eagles: No one escapes Darius Slay Island
Playing cornerback in the NFL is hard.
You can turn in 64 perfectly played snaps over the course of a game and have your efforts dashed, bashed, and called trash on the internet for one miscue, hesitation, or exceptional catch by an opposing wide receiver.
Unfortunate? For said DBs, surely. Wide receivers seldom catch the ball more than a quarter of the snaps they are on the field for in any given game – unless that player is Greg Ward – and fans don’t knock them for “only” having a 65 percent completion percentage. If a DB allows 65 percent of the balls thrown their way to be completed, folks would be calling for their heads.
Such is the life of a cornerback in the NFL, and, in turn, it makes it hard to evaluate which cornerbacks are doing a good job and which ones are masking poor coverage with flashy interception numbers.
Fortunately, the Philadelphia Eagles don’t have to bang the table too hard for Darius Slay‘s on-field mastery, as the Pro Bowl cornerback has the substantive stats to be advanced analytics darling and the flashy big plays to capture the casual fan alike.
The Philadelphia Eagles send opposing receivers to Darius Slay Island.
Three interceptions, two fumble recoveries, and three touchdowns; only one cornerback in the NFL today has that exact stat line, and it’s not Jalen Ramsey, Marshon Lattimore, or even Trevon Diggs, all three of whom are representing the NFC in the Pro Bowl.
No, the only cornerback with those flashy “big plays” on their 2021 resume is none other than Darius Slay, the fourth Pro Bowl cornerback for the NFC.
If that was all Slay brought to the table – the sizzle on top of the steak, if you will – he’d probably still be in the Pro Bowl, as the game is designed to reward flashy, household name players, but fortunately for Philadelphia Eagles fans, that isn’t all the pride of Mississippi State is about.
No, Slay’s 2021 campaign also featured an opposing catch percentage of 58.8 on 85 targets, an average yards per catch of 10.7 – his lowest in four years – and only three touchdowns surrendered on 50 catches. He shut down many of the best wide receivers in the NFL, forced opposing play-callers to avoid his side of the field, and, assuming he doesn’t play in Week 18, will finish out the season with the lowest passer rating allowed in single coverage of any cornerback in the NFL according to PFF.
https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1478909200759771137?t=GoKn2HEOMWeD4hnYYis9AQ&s=19
As the graphic suggests, when you land on Darius Slay Island, you don’t get off.
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There’s no doubt about it; Darius Slay is the complete package. He can cover good in zone, great in man, and even run a few snaps on offense, even if they have yet to produce any real results. For a team like the Philadelphia Eagles, who have been desperate for elite outside cornerback production since Asante Samuel was traded to Atlanta, having a do-it-all flashy DB with the substance to back it up has to be the best feeling, right up there with making the playoffs under rookie head coach Nick Sirianni.