No Malcolm Jenkins, no Sidney Jones, and no Rasul Douglas in the Eagles’ secondary this year. Ronald Darby signed with Washington in free agency and Jalen Mills is converting from cornerback to safety.

In come Darius Slay, Nickell Robey-Coleman, and Will Parks, the latter of whom is not available for Sunday’s season opener, which puts Marcus Epps and Rudy Ford in the mix for dime safety.

It’s a much different defensive backfield at NovaCare, with a lot of new faces and even a surprise or two with Epps and Craig James making the 53-man roster after brief stints with the team in 2019.

Said defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz on that:

“I think Craig was one of our most improved players. He went from being sort of a special teams only guy last year. He did have to start against the Jets, but he was more of a niche special teams for us this year, and came in from the first day of training camp and really looked like a different guy.

Cover skills were outstanding; knowledge of our scheme was outstanding; gave us some versatility. And he did all this with also — I don’t mean to speak for (Dave Fipp), but I saw him as an improved special teams player. So we were really excited about Craig and what he can do. He’s tough. He’s fast. Now he has a little bit of experience in our scheme, and we are excited about what he can do.

I would probably put Epps in this same category. Came to us middle of the year last year. We plugged him in some of our dime packages, but we limited what he was asked to do in our defense. He played a lot in the post and the other guys, like Rodney (McLeod) and Malcolm (Jenkins), sort of covered up.

I saw those guys as really improved players for us, and I think both of those guys will play a big part in our effort this year.”

Epps is a good football story, a 6th rounder out of Wyoming who was waived by the Vikings last November but now finds himself on the Birds’ roster.

James is also an interesting case, a Big 10 player who broke his leg and then transferred to Southern Illinois. He went undrafted before being picked up by Minnesota, where he played only three games a special teamer before joining the Eagles’ practice squad in 2019. His biggest play of the season was the goal line pass break up against Green Bay, which won the game:

As it stands, the Eagles have Slay and Avonte Maddox as the starters on the outside, with Robey-Coleman in the slot. In years past, they had a little more outside depth, but with Douglas and Jones gone, it will look different this year.

Schwartz:

“I would probably put Cre’Von LeBlanc in a similar category I talked about with Craig and Epps. We sort of always viewed Cre’ as just a nickel, even though against the Giants a couple years ago he had to go and play outside corner for almost a whole half and really did well for us.

But in his career, NFL career, he’s really been more of a nickel slot. We moved him around a lot and we like his versatility. We think he can handle a lot of different roles, and we’re comfortable with him outside.

We also used Robey outside a lot. Those guys are both a little bit different depending on the matchup we would have in a game if we got to having to use a fourth corner, we would be able to match it. Cre is a little bit bigger, stronger, and Robey has probably got a little bit more quickness, a little bit smaller. But it does give us the ability to be able to handle in-game injuries and thing like that.”

Sunday, you should see Slay on Terry McLaurin, with Maddox and Robey-Coleman handling Steven Sims Jr. and Dontrelle Inman. Let’s play some football.