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Domo: Tulloch shores up middle ground for Eagles' linebacking corps

JOE WALKER was everything you want in a salary-cap era backup. Not only was he proving to be a pretty good player, but he also came cheap. He was a seventh-round rookie with a $465,034 cap number this season.

JOE WALKER was everything you want in a salary-cap era backup. Not only was he proving to be a pretty good player, but he also came cheap. He was a seventh-round rookie with a $465,034 cap number this season.

But Walker tore the ACL in his left knee last Thursday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and an Eagles linebacker unit that already had very little depth didn't even have that.

And that's how the Eagles found themselves having to give a one-year, $3 million contract with $1.75 million in guaranteed money to 31-year-old middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch.

Tulloch is yet another member of the I-used-to-play-for-Jim-Schwartz club. If you're counting, that makes four. He joins cornerbacks Leodis McKelvin and Ron Brooks and linebacker Nigel Bradham, who all played for Schwartz in Buffalo two years ago when he was the Bills' defensive coordinator.

McKelvin, Brooks and Bradham all are expected to be season-opening starters, but they've all been with the Eagles since March. It's too soon to make any determination on Tulloch's role.

Maybe he'll just replace Walker as starter Jordan Hicks' backup in the middle. But given the money they're paying him, it stands to reason he's going to be more than that.

"Obviously he's familiar with coach Schwartz's defense," head coach Doug Pederson said. "At the same time, he's coming in to compete for that linebacker spot there in the middle.

"With the injury to Joe, we need to fill that spot. We just have to see where he's at. What his health is when he gets here (Monday evening) and slowly work him in."

Asked if he meant Tulloch was coming in to compete for the starting MIKE job or the backup spot, Pederson said, "Right now, Jordan's the starter. With the loss of Joe, we just needed a linebacker. And he was the best available for us."

Tulloch has been in the league for 10 years and has 111 career starts. He has spent six of those 10 seasons with Schwartz - three in Tennessee (2006-08) when he was the Titans' defensive coordinator and three in Detroit (2011-13) when Schwartz was the Lions' head coach.

The 5-11, 230-pound Tulloch started 15 games for the Lions last year and played 69.2 percent of the defensive snaps. Two NFC personnel executives I spoke with said he still is a very good run defender, but isn't a three-down linebacker anymore because of limited coverage skills.

Before they signed Tulloch, the Eagles had just one backup linebacker with more than one year of pro experience. That's Najee Goode. The other backups - Myke Tavarres, Quentin Gause and Don Cherry - all are undrafted rookies.

That's a concern because two of their projected starters - Hicks and Mychal Kendricks - have durability issues.

Hicks has missed major chunks of three of his last four football seasons with injuries. At the University of Texas, a hip injury sidelined him for all but three games of the 2012 season. In 2013, he played in just four games before rupturing his Achilles' tendon.

He was one of the Eagles' most pleasant surprises last season, coming off the bench to start and play extremely well in five games. But he missed the second half of the season after tearing a pectoral muscle.

Kendricks missed four games and parts of two others in 2014 with a calf injury. Last year, a hamstring injury sidelined him for three games and parts of two others. He hasn't played in either of the Eagles' first two preseason games because of a hamstring injury.

"It seems like every year I've had something wrong," Kendricks said. "But that's just the nature of the game. It's just something that you deal with, something you work through. (You have to) keep chugging along."

Even when he was healthy last season, Kendricks didn't play very well. He was one of the main culprits in the defense's November-December crash-and-burn.

But Pederson said Monday that moving Hicks to Kendricks' WILL spot and inserting Tulloch in the middle wasn't something he and Schwartz were considering right now.

"Could (Hicks move to WILL)? I think he's athletic enough and smart enough (to do it)," the Eagles coach said. "Possibly (could happen at some point). But right now, that's not the plan."

Kendricks said he wasn't going to spend a lot of time speculating on what, if any, impact Tulloch's arrival might have on him.

"I'm just worried about today," he said. "But I'm going to do whatever's asked of me."

Kendricks signed a four-year, $29 million extension with the Eagles last summer. His 2016 salary - $2.85 million - is guaranteed and he counts $4.6 million against the team's cap this season.

Hicks would have no trouble moving to the outside. He played WILL in a 4-3 scheme his first year at Texas. Doesn't mean he wants to make the move. Just means it wouldn't be a big deal for him. At least from a mental perspective.

"We'll see," he said. "I've played different positions before. If it happens, I'll roll with the punches like I always do and keep going."

All of this is a bit premature until Tulloch gets on the field and Schwartz is able to get a better feel for what kind of shape he's in and what he has left in his tank.

Asked Monday whether anyone on the coaching staff has said anything to him about their plans for Tulloch and its possible ripple effect on him, Hicks said, "They reinforced that, right now, I am the starting middle linebacker.

"Obviously he'll be in here competing. It'll be good to have somebody like that, (putting) a little pressure (on me). I'm excited to learn from him.

"Competition pushes everybody. It makes you rise to the occasion and find out what you're made of. I expect that to happen.

"It's definitely a really good addition to this team, to this defense, to this linebacking corps. The guy has played a long time and he understands playing in coach Schwartz's defense."