Philadelphia Eagles: JaCoby Stevens should make his defensive debut

The Philadelphia Eagles‘ 2021 rookie class was big.

With the season initially assumed to be more about player development than a knockdown, drag-out brawl for a spot in the playoffs – though the team did make some stopgap signings too – the Eagles went heavy on rookie contributors heading into their maiden voyage under Nick Sirianni, with eight of their nine draftees making the initial 53 man roster coming out of camp.

The one player who didn’t land on the active roster, however, was JaCoby Stevens, a sixth-round safety out of LSU that Howie Roseman envisioned as an NFL weakside linebacker.

Call it a byproduct of having six incumbent linebackers who were borderline locks to make the roster coming into the season, plus a seventh, Eric Wilson, who was just signed to one of those aforementioned stopgap deals, and the path for Stevens to make the initial roster was steep, to say the least.

But do you know what? It’s not about how you got here but what you do once you arrive. After passing through waivers unclaimed and spending the entire season on the practice squad, Stevens was called up for Week 17 versus the Washington Football Team and made his official debut by playing 13 snaps on special teams. With the season entering its final week of regulation, two linebackers – Genard Avery and Alex Singleton – in COVID protocol, and a resulting elevation to the active roster already made official, this might just be the week JaCoby Stevens finally makes his defensive debut for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Philadelphia Eagles fans will hopefully get a look into JaCoby Steven’s future.

The Philadelphia Eagles have a type they are looking to fill at linebacker.

While the team has gotten lucky with prototypical between the tackles, a few actually they’ve never quite been able to secure the sort of rangey, coverage specialist that many an NFL team likes to deploy versus opposing tight ends, running backs, and even running quarterbacks as a spy.

And believe you me, they’ve tried.

Since Howie Roseman returned to power, the Eagles have repeatedly targeted college safeties and uber-speedy projects, from Nate Gerry, to Jatavis Brown, Alex Singleton, Davion Taylor, Shaun Bradley, and most recently JaColby Stevens, in the hopes of lucking into a highly specialized player that is routinely either drafted in the first round or develop via sheer luck.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, most of these longshots haven’t paid off.

Sure, Singleton has proven a decent enough fourth man in a 4-3 defense, Taylor looked encouraging before landing on IR with a knee injury, and Bradley has become one of the best special teamers in the NFL, but when it comes to actual on-field production, the Eagles’ linebacking corps is T.J. Edwards and company, with no true number two worthy of being penciled in long-term.

Could Stevens be that guy? Maybe, maybe not, but I’d certainly like to see how he looks on the field.

Measuring in at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds, Stevens turned in elite broad jump and vertical jump numbers at LSU’s pro day which, when coupled with a 4.62 40 and 77.4-inch wingspan, led many a team to believe he might be better suited at the NFL level as a box option exclusively. While his man coverage skills weren’t elite – egro why he isn’t playing safety – Stevens looked comfortable enough in zone coverage, especially as a playmaker, and theoretically could fill that sort of hybrid weakside linebacker/box safety role that teams love to deploy both in their base defense and in defensive subpackages.

If Stevens can beat out the odds and fill that role, well, the Eagles will be very well positioned for the future, as he’d be a wonderful subpackage partner in crime for Taylor should his development stay on track, but for that to happen, the rookie first has to prove he belongs at the NFL level, which he might just be able to do in Week 18 albeit against a depleted Cowboys team that almost surely won’t be running out their starters for an all but meaningless contest.

While it’s pretty safe to assume the Cowboys will be without Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and potentially even Tony Pollard in Week 18, getting Stevens a few snaps against the Cowboys tight ends in coverage, be that 2018 fourth-round pick Dalton Schultz or any of the team’s reserves could be incredibly telling about where he currently stands as a coverage specialist moneybacker, and whether or not his playmaking abilities – he picked off four passes in and had four fumble recoveries college – traveled east from Baton Rouge to the City of Brotherly Love.

Granted one game isn’t quite a big enough sample size to claim anything definitive, and Stevens will all but surely return to the bench in time for the playoffs, but putting 60 good defensive snaps on tape is surely better than 60 bad ones, especially with his spot on the roster in 2022 less than guaranteed.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that eventually, the Philadelphia Eagles will have to put their money where their mouth is, either financially or in terms of draft capital, and secure themselves an elite option in the middle of their defense. They’ve only used two Day 2 picks on the position since Mychal Kendricks was drafted 46th overall in 2012 and with only one of those players left on the roster right now, one would assume the team would finally prioritize a position that’s been a weakness for years. But what if they don’t? What if T.J. Edwards, Davion Taylor, and JaCoby Stevens could form the middle of Jonathan Gannon’s defense for years to come and do so at a relatively high level? I not saying it will surely happen, as frankly it probably won’t, but Week 18 could be the first step in that journey.