Adrian Fedkiw
The Philadelphia Eagles brought back a familiar face Sunday to give them some more assurance in their secondary.
In a move that was expected, the Eagles brought back Corey Graham on a one-year deal.
The Big Nickel, which features three safeties and two cornerbacks in the secondary, has emerged as a hot defensive trend over recent years to defend 12 personnel packages. Philadelphia utilized it effectively during the latter stages of the 2017 season to mask its linebacker depth issues.
By plugging Graham as the Eagles’ third safety, they were able to move Malcolm Jenkins around seamlessly, whether he was defending the slot, playing safety or seeing snaps at linebacker. Jenkins actually saw more time at linebacker last year (41 percent) than any other position on the Birds. This was something Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz referenced back in OTAs in late May.
Corey Graham did play a significant part in being able to move Malcolm around. Corey was another guy that had played corner, played nickel, played a lot of special teams, and had played safety a little bit like Malcolm.
So I think the two keys guys in doing a lot of that stuff, well, the three key guys were Malcolm Jenkins, as you mentioned, [LB] Nigel Bradham, and then Corey Graham. I think all of them were able to play a lot of different positions for us and get us over the hump when it came to injuries.
You’re going to have injuries. You’ve got to be able to deal with them. We were fortunate enough to have multi-dimensional players that were able to keep our level of play high even though we had those injuries.
Philadelphia made use of Jenkins’ versatility after Jordan Hicks tore his Achilles in its Week 7 Monday night victory over Washington. In the weeks after Hicks’ injury the Eagles began to struggle covering opposing tight ends and safeties. Mychal Kendricks had a fantastic start to his season when Jim Schwartz limited his snaps and played up to his strengths, allowing Kendricks to use his speed and timing on the blitz. Kendricks’ snaps, however, dwindled more and more as the season went along and opposing offenses began attacking him in coverage.
Philadelphia allowed 11 receptions for 128 yards to Seattle tight ends and running backs in Week 13, with Kendricks giving up five of those catches for 63 yards and a touchdown on six targets. New York’s running backs and tight ends combined for 19 receptions and 152 yards two weeks later. Evan Engram hauled in eight of those grabs for 87 yards, but a switch was made to put Graham on him in the second half and he essentially shut him down.
Great coverage by Corey Graham on Evan Engram, Rodney McLeod nearly makes an incredible diving interception pic.twitter.com/pqpXCOtZJN
— The Bitter Birds (@AdrianFedkiw) December 17, 2017
Graham remained instrumental for the defense the rest of the way and as you can see by the playoff snap counts.
By the time the Super Bowl came around Graham was playing 84 percent of the time. Philadelphia basically played just two linebackers, with Nigel Bradham seeing 100 percent of the snaps and Kendricks 43 percent. Dannell Ellerbe was the only other Eagles linebacker to see game action and he was in for only three plays.
The Eagles went into the summer with Jeremy Reaves and Tre Sullivan battling for the third safety spot, but neither has shown enough for the coaching staff to feel comfortable with them seeing game action. Reaves is an undrafted rookie from South Alabama, while Sullivan is in his second season undrafted out of Shepherd.
Bringing Graham back was a no-brainer.
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