Over the past 21 years the Eagles success can be directly related to the play of the team’s cornerbacks.
Sure the play of quarterback had a lot to do with it as well, as it does with every NFL team. The Eagles cornerbacks, however, from 1995 through 2008 had a lot to do with the team’s winning as well.
From the drafting of Bobby Taylor in 1995 to the signing of free agent Troy Vincent in 1996 to picking up Al Harris off waivers from Tampa Bay in 1998 to the drafting of Lito Shepherd and Sheldon Brown in 2002 and signing Rod Hood as an undrafted free agent in 2003, the Eagles found every way possible to get good cornerbacks.
And then they didn’t.
With at least one of those seven cornerbacks mentioned above, and at times three, the Eagles made the playoffs 10 times from 1995-2009, won 11 playoff games, went to five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl.
Eagles 7-round mock draft
Since 2010 when the team signed the likes of Ellis Hobbs, and Dimitri Patterson and Nnamdi Asoumaga and Bradley Fletcher and Cary Williams and Byron Maxwell and Leodis McKelvin, all of whom started, they have made the playoffs just twice and haven’t won a playoff game.
They have been forced to sign those retreads, because they didn’t draft well at the position, either. The same organization that drafted Taylor, Shepherd and Brown, have drafted 13 cornerbacks from 2007 to 2016, only two — Jalen Mills (2016) and Jaylen Watkins (2014) on still on the roster and Watkins is playing safety.
For that matter only two others are still in the league, the now infamous Eric Rowe (Patriots) and Brandon Boykin, who is with his fourth different team, the Bears, but spent last season on injured reserve.
After McKelvin was released earlier this week it left just three cornerbacks on the Eagles’ roster — Mills, C.J. Smith and Ron Brooks. Suffice it to say the team will be on the look for cornerbacks both in free agency where it may be difficult to find one and in a draft loaded with them.
Will they find another Taylor, or Vincent, or a Shepherd or Brown? Or will it be more McKelvin and Trevor Lindley or Curtis Marsh?
The future of the team will depend on it.
Mark Eckel may be reached at mjeck04@verizon.net. Follow him on Twitter @MarkEckel08. Find NJ.com Eagles on Facebook.
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