Philadelphia Eagles: Signing James Bradberry is a compounding victory

Ah, sweet victory.

After two weeks of campaigning via everyone from Darius Slay to your fine friends here at Section 215, Howie Roseman answered the wishes of his semi-adoring Philadelphia Eagles fan base and signed the best darn cornerback on the market, James Bradberry, to a one-year, $10 million contract.

Remember the days of having to trot out cornerbacks like Leodis McKelvin, Michael Jacquet, and Nolan Carroll? Yeah, those are long gone.

With players like Tay Gowan, Zech McPhearson, and Kerry Vincent Jr., the often overlooked cornerback Roseman traded for last October, now relegated to reserve duty for at least the next season, the Eagles suddenly find themselves with arguably the best secondary in the NFC East, with a chance to get even better if they can somehow secure a veteran upgrade to compete with Marcus Epps for the spot opposite Anthony Harris.

And the best part? James Bradberry actually chose the Philadelphia Eagles over 11 other teams who expressed interest in his services. Life, my friends, is oh so good.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ entire defense improves with the addition of James Bradberry.

An NFL defense is only as good as its worst player.

Now granted, a smart coordinator can mitigate that issue at least somewhat and schematically hide his weakest link, but if a defense has a poor interior run defender upfront, an opposing offense is going to run the ball up the middle until it stops working.

On Tuesday, the Eagles’ CB2 was clearly their weakest link and would have been targeted over and over again by savvy coaches calling in plays to savvy quarterbacks. Whether it was Zech McPhearson, Tay Gowan, or one of the UDFAs like Josh Jobe, who ultimately won the spot opposite Darius Slay, that player would draw the matchup against an opposing team’s WR1 unless Jonathan Gamnon opted to have his top corner travel, and would take the brunt of an opposing offense’s best playcalls.

Could offensive coordinators still target the side of the field Slay isn’t on this fall? You bet, even at 31, “Big Play” is still one of the best corners in the NFL today, but now, that spot will be filled by James Bradberry, who, like Slay, had a Pro Bowl on his resume.

Since 2016, Bradberry’s rookie season with the Carolina Panthers, the duo have combined to record 166 passes defensed, 34 interceptions, and seven forced fumbles over 181 regular season games. Both players are long, range-y defenders who can press at the line, drop into man or zone coverage, and even make plays off the line, assuming Gannon wants to play that way.

Factor in the two deep safety shell Gannon wants to run, which will give the duo cover over the top, and the dynamic trio of Bradberry, Slay, and slot cornerback Avonte Maddox will have a green light to play the brand of aggressive, hard-nosed football fans of the Eagles love so much.

Sometimes, a team just gets it right. They look at their roster, ID a position of weakness, and fix it instead of hoping a young player is capable of taking on a bigger role than maybe they are ready for. That’s exactly what the Philadelphia Eagles did by signing James Bradberry, and really, the only “loser” in this deal is the New York Giants, who lost their best cornerback due to a poor allocation of resources by their former general manager.