3 Eagles on Thin Ice After Disastrous Loss to Cardinals in Week 17
By Jovan Alford
3. Shaquille Leonard - LB
The Eagles’ defense and linebackers looked out of sorts last week against the Cardinals and didn’t do a great job of stopping the run. Leonard had an excellent performance on Christmas against the Giants with seven combined tackles, two tackles for loss, and a quarterback hit. He was hitting the gaps and making plays all over the field.
However, that was a completely different story against Arizona as he had five combined tackles and only played 51% of defensive snaps, which is a notable difference from Week 16 (86% of offensive snaps).
10) Back to the bad! This is about as depressing of a play from a LB I've ever seen. You have to feel for Shaq Leonard, but the trust in his body just isn't there. He should be charging here and hitting the RB hard. Instead he tries to punch the football out and it ends up… pic.twitter.com/H9OePBPV8m
— Jonny Page (@JonnyPage9) January 2, 2024
If Zach Cunningham can play this week, it will be interesting to see what the Eagles do at linebacker with him, Leonard, and Nicholas Morrow.
It's tough to be hard on Leonard, who just played his first game with the team in Week 14, but the linebacker play for the Eagles this season has been hit or miss, and he's largely been a miss.
There's not time for the Eagles to help him build confidence by bringing Leonard up to speed slowly and getting him acclimated — it's do or die time, and Sunday will be Leonard's last shot to prove himself before potentially getting benched for the playoffs.
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