Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Murphy: Why can't Eagles build around players like other winning teams?

WHEN THE PATRIOTS won the Super Bowl in 2014, Malcolm Butler was an undrafted free agent who played 17 percent of their snaps during the regular season, the No. 6 cornerback on the depth chart. Logan Ryan, a third-round pick the year before, was No. 4 on the depth chart. Not until their second and third seasons, respectively, did the tandem move into the starting lineup full time, at which point they quickly established themselves as one of the better starting tandems in the NFL.

When the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2014, Malcolm Butler was an undrafted free agent who played 17 percent of their snaps during the regular season, the No. 6 cornerback on the depth chart. Logan Ryan, a third-round pick the year before, was No. 4 on the depth chart. Not until their second and third seasons, respectively, did the tandem move into the starting lineup full time, at which point they quickly established themselves as one of the better starting tandems in the NFL.

This observation seemed relevant as you watched Eric Rowe appear in the Patriots secondary at random junctures throughout New England's 36-17 win over the Steelers in Sunday's AFC Championship Game. It was hard not to think of that moment in Howie Roseman's year-end press conference when the Eagles chief football executive defended his decision to give up on Rowe just one season after selecting him with a second-round pick, claiming he already knew that Rowe did not have a long-term future in Jim Schwartz's defense.

While Roseman's claim that the Eagles had already decided they would not re-sign Rowe before his rookie contract expired after the 2018 season was absurd on a literal level, the notion that Rowe was a poor fit for a scheme that asks its cornerbacks to play a lot of aggressive man-to-man coverage was a valid one. The real point of contention might center around the wisdom of such a rigid adherence to scheme. The Patriots' defense in its current incarnation uses a lot of drop zone, but Bill Belichick has adapted his scheme throughout the years to get his best mix of available personnel on the field. In 2014, that meant acquiring Darrelle Revis, who at the time was the best man-to-man defender in the game. The point isn't that the Eagles should have built their post-Billy Davis defense around Rowe. Rather, it's that one of the big factors for the Patriots' sustained run of dominance is their ability to identify under-the-radar players whose physical toolset can give them some sort of advantage in some aspect of the game at some position on the field, as long as the coaching staff can coach-'em-up on technique and brainstorm a way to deploy them.

Up and down the Patriots' roster, you see players who fit a profile similar to Rowe. Perhaps the most striking to local fans is Patrick Chung, a former Patriots second-round draft pick who spent an awful season at safety in Davis' first year as Eagles defensive coordinator before returning to New England, where he has started and performed well at safety ever since. While Chung struggled with his health when he was here, the fact that one of the best defenses in the NFL has now found a role in its scheme for two players who didn't fit in the Eagles' scheme raises a valid question: Why not run a scheme where these guys fit?

It's not that simple of course. I suspect that a lot of what we see in New England is the result of really, really, really good individual coaching and development in the technique of football. That's an area where time can be the only the judge for Doug Pederson and his regime. The firing of wide receivers coach Greg Lewis this offseason was a reminder of the crucial role that position-level coaching has on the ground floor of the vast apparatus of an NFL football team.

The last few years have featured plenty of talk of scheme versus talent with regard to the Eagles, but coaching might be the branch of the tree that matters most. Consider Sunday's championship game field. While much of the media focus was on the four quarterbacks who took the field – and rightfully so – a lesser common thread uniting three of the four teams was their coaching staffs' proven history of developing talent. Antonio Brown was a sixth-round pick who caught 16 passes for 167 yards as a rookie before blossoming into the Steelers latest pass-catching sensation. At left tackle, Pittsburgh features former Eagles training camp fodder Alejandro Villanueva, whose transformation from Army Ranger defensive lineman to blind-side pass protector calls to mind another former Eagles practice squadder Stephen Neal, a collegiate wrestler who eventually latched on with the Patriots and started at guard for seven seasons, including 2004, when the Pats beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl. The Packers' organizational development machine needs no rehashing. The 53-man roster they took into Sunday's thrashing by the Falcons included just eight players who hadn't spent their entire career in Green Bay, including two specialists, a back-up fullback, and the No. 7 wide receiver on the depth chart. Who knows what that number would have been if not for the six original Packers on injured reserve.

Maybe the best way to put it is this: How much of the Eagles' failure in the draft has been an inability to identify talent capable of playing in the NFL, and how much of it has been their inability to develop and/or deploy that talent in a manner that lets them succeed? I don't know the answer. But as Eric Rowe and two other cornerbacks developed by the Patriots celebrated a trip to the Super Bowl, it was an interesting question to ponder.

dmurphy@phillynews.com

@ByDavidMurphy

Blog:philly.com/Eaglesblog