Eagles safeties are in a hitting slump

YOU SEE A crisis at the Eagles' safety position, Nate Allen sees "a few things we have to clean up."

It's not hard to want Allen to be right. There is no nicer, more affable Eagle than the fourth-year safety from South Florida. Before training camp started, Eagles legend Brian Dawkins identified Allen as the Birds' most talented safety, but said he needed to find consistency. The hope has been that a new defensive coaching staff and a new scheme that doesn't require the safeties to assume primary run responsibility would rekindle the promise Allen showed as a second-round rookie in 2010.

Last Friday's 31-22 preseason-opening loss to the Patriots was disappointing in almost every defensive respect, particularly in that one. When Tom Brady wasn't hitting receivers in stride, Patriots runners were galloping through the secondary, ripping off runs of 62 and 51 yards in the first half. Allen looked hesitant and confused, much as he has looked the past two seasons. Rookie Earl Wolff took Allen's spot with the first-team defense in Monday's practice, the only practice with pads between Friday's game and tomorrow night's preseason encounter with the visiting Carolina Panthers.

Officially, that was the "practice rotation," and Allen and Kurt Coleman were the first-team safeties in yesterday's walkthrough practice. But Wolff was paired again with Patrick Chung, the ex-Patriot who is the favorite to start at strong safety. It sure seems the coaching staff wants to get a good look at how Wolff works with Chung.

"I just come out and work, man. I don't even worry about where I am . . . I do what they ask me to do," Allen said yesterday.

"I think all of those guys are getting familiar with how Billy [Davis, the defensive coordinator] calls things, and what we're teaching, and whatnot. I think overall, as a group, they're coming along. But I think every single one of them will tell you that they need to improve in terms of how they played last week," Eagles coach Chip Kelly said yesterday, when asked about the safeties.

"They can [be better at] recognizing and being a little quicker in diagnosing what the plays are and coming up and being able to understand where they fit, and some of the schemes that we're doing. They're asked to do some things different than they were in the last defense they played, so there is a transition going on there."

Asked if this is an easier defense to play than the previous one, Allen said: "That's hard to say. It puts us in position to make a lot of plays."

Making plays is nice. Allen started 13 games last season without ever intercepting a pass, or forcing or recovering a fumble. He hasn't had a sack since notching two as a rookie in 2010.

"There's a lot of personal goals that I set for myself," Allen said, when asked to assess his career thus far. "But the main thing is the Super Bowl. Getting that Super Bowl ring and just going out there and helping the team wherever you can."

Allen (6-1, 210) has decent size and speed. But playing safety is a lot about ferocious intensity, and a lot about instinct, anticipation. When you think of those attributes, you don't think of Nate Allen. (Who was the last Eagles safety you did think of in those terms? Dawkins?)

When Davis was asked Monday about what he saw from his safeties in the preseason opener, he said: "I saw some good and some bad. I saw some missed tackles and some big hits. I saw the coverages were closer than I thought [before watching film]. We contested a lot of balls in the secondary, but they caught the ball still. We had tight coverage, but didn't finish the play with the ball out. The ball was caught.

"It was a great test to go up against the No. 1 offense, in my opinion, or at least [one of] the top three in the NFL, in Brady and the guys. Practicing against them, the seven-on-seven periods reminded me of seven-on-seven with Kurt Warner [when Davis coached in Arizona]. There was never a ball on the ground. The great ones, that's how they work their seven-on-seven. It was a heckuva challenge for us. In the game, you saw the same thing. That's where we're going. We're striving to be able to shut down that offense, and you saw from the other night, we're not there. We're not close. We're going to strive to get there, but that was a great indicator against the top offense in the NFL of where we are and what we need to do to get there."

Allen was asked about tackling, a persistent topic with last year's Eagles, and a relevant concern this year, based on the New England game. Football Outsiders ranked Allen sixth in the NFL last season for broken tackles, in which the offensive player should have been tackled but wasn't. Coleman, last year's starting strong safety, ranked 12th, two spots behind Eagles linebacker Mychal Kendricks. Then-Eagles corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was fourth. And yeah, the Eagles were the only team with four players in the top 12.

"It's something that we needed to work on," Allen acknowledged. "It's something that as a defense you always are working on. Even in practice when you're not tackling, you're coming to contact and getting your feet right and getting your steps down."

The Eagles have seven safeties in camp, and Davis said Monday he hasn't picked any starters. This position and corner, it wouldn't be a shock if the names changed some more after other teams cut down. Rosters are scheduled to be trimmed from 90 to 75 Aug. 27, and from 75 to 53 Aug. 31.

Davis said he has rotated more at the safety position than anywhere else thus far in camp, trying to find a solid combination. He acknowledged he'd thought his defense was closer to being good than it turned out to be against the Patriots. Tomorrow night's game will tell him more, overall and with the safeties.

"Every game we play puts us closer," Davis said. "Everything counts, but the games are weighted the most."

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