Philadelphia Eagles: Derek Stingley Jr. has Philly in his blood

Unless something changes radically over the next few weeks, the Philadelphia Eagles will enter the 2022 NFL Draft without a clear player in place as their CB2.

Now granted, maybe that’s by design. Maybe Howie Roseman feels really confident about his 2021 fourth-round pick, Zech McPhearson, or watched Tay Gowan turn in some seriously impressive performances in practice down the stretch last fall.

… or maybe the Eagles have three selections before pick 20 and feel confident that a plug-‘n-play cornerback will be on the board at 15.

Between you and me, let’s hope it’s the latter.

While the Birds likely won’t have their pick of the litter when they finally go on the clock roughly two hours into Thursday night, as at least one corner, Sauce Gardner, will likely have been selected within the top-10, there should still be some really good players left on the board who can don the midnight green and immediately make an impact right from the gate. Of the potential options in play at 15, Derek Stingley Jr. might just be the most enticing, as he has a game tailor-made for the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive scheme.

Derek Stingley Jr. had a game Philadelphia Eagles fans will love.

What do the Philadelphia Eagles want in a starting outside cornerback?

For starters, Jonathan Gannon is looking for tall, long defensive backs who can press at the line of scrimmage and make plays on the ball with an outstretched hand before it reaches a receiver’s catch radius. Gannon would also, ideally, like to secure a player with experience running both a man and zone scheme, with the requisite athleticism needed to stick with their receiver in mirror coverage on-ball and the instincts needed to make the correct reads off it.

While Steven Nelson played more of his snaps off the ball than pressed up to the line of scrimmage, that had more to do with his preferred style of play than what Gannon would like to do. In a perfect world, both corners would play like Darius Slay, who was routinely throwing hands once the ball was snapped.

Last but certainly not least, the Birds surely wouldn’t mind finding a cornerback who can drop the hammer on ball handlers either after the catch or as additional support versus the run. In a league where some cornerbacks prefer to play a finesse game, securing a bruiser who can tackle at an above-average level is an asset that could prove to be the difference between a touchdown and a turnover on downs.

Fortunately, there are many cornerbacks who fit that mold in the 2022 NFL Draft, none the more impressive than Derek Stingley Jr. of LSU.

Measuring in at 6-foot, 190 with long arms and a mature build, Stingley rapidly rose to national prominence for his “my ball” mentality and exceptionally eye-popping ability to attack the ball in the air. Starting for Ed Orgeron’s defense as a true freshman, Stingley picked off six passes, defensed 15, and recorded 38 total tackles on his way to both a national championship and a spot on the consensus All-American team. While his game never quite reached that level of “showtime” again, as he only appeared in seven games in 2020 and three more in 2021 before losing the year to a Lisfranc injury, Stingley rarely put a bad game on tape during his time in Baton Rouge and only allowed 834 yards and seven touchdowns on 129 targets over 25 games.

When you consider the schedule LSU played in 2019 on their way to the CFP National Champion game, that’s pretty impressive stuff.

If transplanted into a midnight green uniform, either adorned with his collegiate number 24 or a new single-digit number a la his junior season, Stingley could immediately line up opposite Avonte Maddox and Slay as the Philadelphia Eagles’ CB2 and give the team their best one-two-three punch since the Bobby Taylor, Troy Vincent, and Sheldon Brown. Stingley can immediately play any coverage the Eagles throw his way, provide run support as a plus-tackler in space, and even serve as an occasional perimeter blitzer, which neither Slay nor Nelson was tasked with doing in 2022.

Assuming Stingley doesn’t turn in an all-time bad performance – or all-time good performance – at LSU’s Pro Day on April 6th, he very well could be in play to be drafted by Philadelphia with one of their first-round picks at the end of the month, which would be a full-circle moment for a player with a long lineage of professional athletes in his family.

Fun fact: Did you know that Derek Stingley Sr. was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1993? Philly runs in the LSU DB’s blood, folks.

Will some talent evaluators give him pause for having a well-documented history of injury? Sure, a Lisfranc injury is no joke, as was the leg injury he suffered in 2020. But Derek Stingley Jr.’s talent is so gosh darn transcendent, and his game is so ready-made for the NFL level that a team in need of a big, long, man-press cornerback shouldn’t think too hard about making him a first-round pick. If Stingley falls to the Philadelphia Eagles at 15, his selection would be a home run, as he would give the team two Pro Bowl-caliber corners to build their defense around in the short-term and an eventual replacement for Darius Slay as their CB1 of the future. After watching his father fail to make the big club almost 30 years ago, Stingley could forge his own legacy in the City of Brotherly Love and become the franchise-caliber player worthy of note.