To say that Andrew Mukuba's NFL career got off to a somewhat rocky start would be pretty accurate. He missed some time with an injury, and while he was able to suit up in Week 1, he looked overwhelmed at times earlier in the season.
Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio hit him with some tough love multiple times. But now that he's finally gotten his legs under him and has seemingly gotten a hold of the speed of the NFL game, even Fangio has seemed to change his tone when talking about him.
Mukuba has looked much better in the past couple of games. That's why, now that he has eleven weeks of NFL experience under his belt, he was able to look back at the tape of his first games and realize how far he's come.
Andrew Mukuba is Finally Showing What He's Capable of
“I was just talking about it,” Mukuba told Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “It’s so crazy how it’s already Week 12. He’s absolutely right. I’ve got enough games under my belt to where I don’t consider myself a rookie anymore. I feel like I’ve seen everything I’ve needed to see and I just can’t make the rookie mistakes. It’s not Week 1 no more. Time to get better and improve.”
A former standout at Texas, Mukuba made his first big play when he picked off Patrick Mahomes in a crucial moment during Week 2. In the following weeks, however, he didn't show the type of consistency that it would take to play meaningful snaps for the Super Bowl champions.
Mukuba has now logged 601 snaps, and while his Pro Football Focus grade of 57.5 might not necessarily be impressive -- it's ranked 65th among 93 eligible safeties -- he's certainly trending in the right direction. He had a 79.4 overall grade and a 71.7 grade in coverage in the Week 10 win over the Green Bay Packers, for instance.
The Eagles have gotten some uneven play from fellow safety Reed Blankenship. He currently has the fourth-worst PFF grade in the league at 43.2, and with Mukuba already picking off a couple of passes, he's also ahead of his teammates in that regard.
Some young players need more time to figure things out before they prove what they can do in the pros. Mukuba still has a long way to go and plenty to learn, but after a shaky start to his career, he finally looks like the playmaker the Eagles craved when they took him in the second round.