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Can Eagles' Rowe earn starting spot at corner?

THERE WASN'T one particular thing that killed the 2015 Eagles. They were a dead team walking from the Week 1 opening kickoff. They were a grossly overweight two-pack-a-day smoker with diabetes and a bad ticker and a side order of severe emphysema.

THERE WASN'T one particular thing that killed the 2015 Eagles.

They were a dead team walking from the Week 1 opening kickoff. They were a grossly overweight two-pack-a-day smoker with diabetes and a bad ticker and a side order of severe emphysema.

Ironically, one of last season's many low points could turn out to be very beneficial to the fortunes of the 2016 Eagles.

Early in the second quarter of the Eagles' 45-14 Thanksgiving Day loss to the Detroit Lions, starting cornerback Nolan Carroll suffered a broken right leg that ended his season.

Carroll, who had been the Eagles' best cornerback before the injury, was expected to draw some interest from other teams in free agency in March. But that all changed because of his injury.

The market for Carroll effectively went dead and he ended up re-signing with the Eagles for another year. Carroll hasn't participated in any of the team's spring OTAs as he continues to recover, but is expected to be ready to go by the start of training camp.

Carroll's injury not only allowed the Eagles to hang on to him at a very affordable price, but also provided a valuable playing-time opportunity for the guy who replaced him last season, 2015 second-round pick Eric Rowe.

Rowe gave up two touchdown passes to the Lions' Calvin Johnson after replacing Carroll. But he started the Eagles' final five games, including wins over New England, Buffalo and the Giants, and played pretty well.

A week after giving up those two TDs to Johnson, Rowe withstood an assault by the Patriots' Tom Brady. Brady made a point of going after the rookie, throwing in his direction 12 times in the Eagles' 35-28 upset win. He completed just four of those 12 passes, for 42 yards.

"It's good that he got that experience," safety Malcolm Jenkins said. "He made some plays and met some challenges. It all makes you better as a player. He knows what to prepare for now. Nothing will shock him.

"He's going to face the same kind of competition. (The Giants') Odell (Beckham Jr.), (the Cowboys') Dez (Bryant) and D-Jac (the Redskins' DeSean Jackson) twice a year. Plus the guys we're going to see out of conference.

"The biggest thing now is how much has the game slowed down for him. You start to gain some ground on that learning curve in the second year. That second year for me was a big jump as far as (dealing with) the speed of the game and how fast I was able to process stuff and read routes and things like that."

Both Rowe and Carroll will face stiff competition for the two starting corner jobs. The Eagles currently have 10 cornerbacks on their spring roster, including veterans Leodis McKelvin and Ron Brooks, who both played for new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz in Buffalo two years ago, and talented seventh-round draft pick Jalen Mills.

"With everybody, you want to see people improving," Jenkins said. "You want to see them make new mistakes and not repeat old ones. That's usually a sign of progress.

"I think we're seeing (Rowe) take strides. But there's a lot of competition for those corner positions. Once we get to training camp, that will be the time for him to show that he's made some big improvement. That's when Eric's game is elevated. When we put pads on and he can add the element of physicality. That's something you can't really coach or teach."

Schwartz's predecessor, Bill Davis, was determined to bring Rowe along slowly last season. He didn't want to throw him out there before he was ready and destroy his confidence. Rowe had spent most of his college career at Utah as a safety and only made the switch to cornerback before his senior year.

He played more than 15 snaps in just one of the Eagles' first 10 games. That was in a Week 4 loss to Washington when he played 77 snaps in place of injured Byron Maxwell.

"In the first couple of games I played, I was really surprised how fast the game speed actually was," Rowe said. "I knew it was going to be fast. But I didn't know it was going to be that drastic from college to here.

"The first couple of games, I'm like, 'Man, the routes are breaking off clean. Hold on. Maybe I should sit back and observe this for a while.'

"It was a good thing in the long run (that he didn't play a lot early). Because when I actually got in, I knew what to expect and was better able to deal with the game speed."

Initially, he was so concerned about not getting beat deep, that he played too soft. But as the season progressed and he gained more confidence, he became more aggressive and did a better job of defending the short and intermediate routes.

"Going up against the quarterbacks and receivers I went up against last year boosted my self-esteem," Rowe said. "Especially after the Patriots game. I knew I could go out there and cover really good receivers.

"But that's history. That's all in the past. It's a new year and I just have to keep getting better. I can't just sit there and say, 'Yeah, I can cover this guy because I did it last year.' Everybody gets better. And I need to keep getting better too."

@Pdomo

Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog