Philadelphia Eagles: Who is 2022’s Steven Nelson?

In 2021, it took Steven Nelson almost four months to land a new contract in free agency.

Now granted, some of that was intentional. No player wants to sign a free agent contract only to watch their new team draft a Day 1 starter a few weeks later, so when the initial wave of free agency passed and Nelson remained unemployed, his agent likely suggested waiting it out to see if a starting opportunity opened up before committing his services one way or another.

That opportunity ultimately came in the City of Brotherly Love, where, once it became clear Zech McPhearson wouldn’t be able to start as a fourth-round rookie, Howie Roseman paid up to the tune of a one-year, $3.01 million contract. Immediately thrust into action for the Philadelphia Eagles opposite Darius Slay, Nelson started all 16 of the regular season games he appeared in and produced at a level above his financial weight class.

While he did give up five touchdowns, which was the highest mark across the team’s defensive secondary and was never all that comfortable pressing at the line of scrimmage, Nelson picked up 50 tackles, defensed seven passes, and even recorded an interception versus Carolina in Week 5, and helped to shore up what proved to be a solid secondary.

Would it have been nice to bring back Nelson in 2022? You bet; despite his less-than-ideal fit in Jonathan Gannon’s scheme, Nelson is a professional defensive back and a top-50 cornerback in the NFL today. Unfortunately, that will no longer be an option for the Philadelphia Eagles, as he just signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Houston Texans, according to Aaron Wilson of the Pro Football Network.

Who is the Philadelphia Eagles’ version of Steven Nelson of 2022?

If there’s one thing Howie Roseman likes to do, it’s signing veteran players to one-year contracts. Since returning to power in 2016, a Philadelphia Eagles season hasn’t gone by where a few spots across the starting lineup aren’t filled with a player or two on one-year contracts, many of whom ultimately don’t return the following season.

Why? Well, because a lot of them weren’t very good.

From Andrew Sendejo to Eric Wilson, Zach Brown, Nickell Robey-Coleman, and Mike Wallace, the Eagles have looked to secure serviceable stop gaps when their drafted players haven’t quite lived up to expectations, and for the most part, these players proved why they couldn’t secure longer-term deals elsewhere.

With Steven Nelson gone, the two most prominent expectations to that rule have been Richard Rodgers, who ended up spending parts of four seasons in midnight green after initially signing with the team on a one-year, $880,000 contract in 2018, and Anthony Harris, who just re-signed with the team after a decent enough season in 2021.

Will the Eagles strike gold yet again on their short-term bets in 2022, or will they have to add even more names to the ledger of free agent Ls? Only time will tell, but the duo of Zach Pascal and Kyzir White have a pretty good chance to make an impact right out of the gates.

Presently penciled into the starting lineup at weakside linebacker and wide receiver, respectively, Pascal and White will both take the field for the Eagles early and often in 2022 and have variable roles that could scale up or down based on how the rest of the offseason shakes out.

If the Eagles fail to land a wide receiver who can immediately slot into the starting lineup opposite DeVonta Smith and Quez Watkins, then Pascal will likely fill that role, whether from the slot or at the X spot. By contrast, if the Eagles do end up landing a player, be that Alabama’s Jameson Williams, Arkansas’ Treylon Burks, or USC’s London Drake, Pascal could shift into a utility backup role that will still see him take the field a good bit but as a complementary piece instead of a focal point.

The same could be said for White. While the chances of Howie Roseman drafting a linebacker in the first round are similar to a snowball’s chances in you know where, it’s possible Davion Taylor could roll into his third professional season ready to prove the doubters wrong and maybe even beat out White for a spot in the starting lineup. If that happens, White will surely still get used in defensive sub-packages but will likely be on the lookout for a new home in 2022.

Sidebar: Between you and me, I think Kyzir White is going to be a star in Jonathan Gannon’s scheme and will secure a long-term contract moving forward, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.

In the NFL, continuity is important. Sure, talent is vital too, but if players have to learn a new scheme every season and play alongside new players year-in and year-out, they will struggle to form the chemistry that elevates a unit above the sum of its parts. Will the Philadelphia Eagles still rely on some players on short-term contracts? You bet; every team does so, and the Birds are no exception, but to truly take things up a notch, some of those players need to be good enough to warrant long-term extensions as that means they are worthy of being foundational pieces of the Nick Sirianni era.