Philadelphia Eagles: 3 veteran safeties worth camp consideration
Landon Collins isn’t a particularly good fit in the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive scheme. He’s more of a box safety who actually spent some time as a quasi-linebacker in Ron Rivera’s Washington defense last fall and may struggle to play in a traditional two-high safety look, assuming he even wants to.
With that being said, Collins is head and shoulders the best safety left on the free agent market and thus has to be considered for a list such as this, especially since he now has bad blood with half of the NFC East.
A savvy box operator with a pension for hard hits, Collins is a very good run defender, an incredibly effective blitzer, and an experienced defensive back with 6,038 regular season defensive snaps to his credit. While he’s far from a coverage specialist, as the Alabama product has allowed 1,597 yards and 18 touchdowns over the past four seasons, Jonathan Gannon doesn’t have to man up Collins on opposing tight ends without help over the top and could instead concentrate his efforts versus the run, in the box, and even as a pseudo-linebacker versus four and even five wide receiver sets.
Simply put, if Landon Collins wants to play on a prove-it deal in the same price range as the other players on this list, the Philadelphia Eagles would at least have to consider it.