On 8/15/2025 at 1:09 PM, brkmsn said:

we are always just 1 injury away from playing the next man up.

You aren’t wrong there… the problem is some of our starters / first guys up are a big red flag. So just think how bad some of those back ups are.

6 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

You aren’t wrong there… the problem is some of our starters / first guys up are a big red flag. So just think how bad some of those back ups are.

That's a result of the thing they call a "salary cap." It's true for every team in the league.

I remember a time when the rams had an otherwise loaded roster, signed unrestricted free agent QB, Trent Green, to a big 4-year contract in a big "win now" move and saw all their hopes crumble when his season ended in the preseason and they were forced to play Arena Football star / grocery clerk, Kurt Warner.

The point is, there are a lot of unknowns. Some players rise to the challenge if given the opportunity. Also, some players just need time and experience. We could have given up on Jason Kelce early in his career. Zach Baun probably wouldn't have had the season he had if he hadn't come here with 4 years of NFL experience to build off of. Fans expect every player to be "plug and play" whenever there is an opening. That just isn't the normal way things happen.

On 8/15/2025 at 8:09 AM, brkmsn said:

I'm just glad everybody still has something to worry about and stress over. That's the worst thing about winning Super Bowls --- fans might head into the next season feeling good and enjoy just rooting for the players ... or something even worse like being optimistic.

p.s.

we are always just 1 injury away from playing the next man up.

Playing "Next Man up” is a truth. But our CB depth was great last year, with Ringo and Rick’s being the "next man up” behind Slay, Q, and Rodgers. Even hoping DeJean can play on the edge, and we can keep more slots- leaving Ringo and Adoree as backups seems ideal.

Having backups as starters isn’t quite the position we want to be in, and minimize the injury impact in a very shallow group.

1 hour ago, GoEagles614 said:

Playing "Next Man up” is a truth. But our CB depth was great last year, with Ringo and Rick’s being the "next man up” behind Slay, Q, and Rodgers. Even hoping DeJean can play on the edge, and we can keep more slots- leaving Ringo and Adoree as backups seems ideal.

Having backups as starters isn’t quite the position we want to be in, and minimize the injury impact in a very shallow group.

People weren't saying our depth was great before the (2024) season. Many fans complained Slay was too old and declining, Rodgers hadn't played for a year and was not very special before that. Maddox was everybody's whipping boy. Q was an unproven rookie and DeJean was hurt in camp and missed valuable rookie learning time. Tyler Hall was many people's hopeful savior to keep Maddox from making the 53.

While Ringo has not looked all that great in the preseason, he has played reasonably well with the 1st team defense in his limited opportunities in real games. It's not much help when the pass rush is non-existent like much of the 1st two preseason games this year. His mistakes are valuable for learning and for driving the competition for the starting gig. Ringo is a physically gifted athlete that was the furthest thing from a finished product when he entered the NFL draft. Nobody can tell you what will become of him as a player. But he will absolutely have to experience some struggles and learn from those if he will ever become anything more than a backup/ ST player. Dean is an example of a guy with all the tools that was sort of thrust into the starting role after TJ Edwards left. He had his ups and downs (and also the injury that slowed his growth) which created a lot of doubt heading into the 2025 season. It appeared he was behind D. White all through camp and that White was certain to be the starter as he was the only LB that wasn't being rotated in practice off the 1st team defense. When the season began they committed to Dean, eventually releasing White. Dean showed flashes early. He also had a terrible game in tampa with 4 or 5 missed tackles. But he used that as a lesson and grew as a player with experience. He was one of the top LBs in the NFL at the time of his injury.

This year our expectations are high for Q and DeJean (wherever he lines up). That means the other starting CB likely will be a lesser player. I don't know who Vic will ultimately choose as the 3rd CB. I'm not as concerned as many appear to be around here. Even Izel Jenkins was forced to start 5 games on our 1991 defense. I have a feeling we will get a solid performance (overall for the season) from somebody currently on our roster competing for this role.

Wasn't it John metchie behind Seinfelds funny pachyderm story .... potential nick name

The pachyderm

15 hours ago, brkmsn said:

That's a result of the thing they call a "salary cap." It's true for every team in the league.

Hmm I don’t disagree but I still think Howie could have done more / better. Why not resign Rodgers? He didn’t cost too much and we have the cap space even at this point that we could have kept him.

12 hours ago, brkmsn said:

People weren't saying our depth was great before the (2024) season. Many fans complained Slay was too old and declining, Rodgers hadn't played for a year and was not very special before that. Maddox was everybody's whipping boy. Q was an unproven rookie and DeJean was hurt in camp and missed valuable rookie learning time. Tyler Hall was many people's hopeful savior to keep Maddox from making the 53.

While Ringo has not looked all that great in the preseason, he has played reasonably well with the 1st team defense in his limited opportunities in real games. It's not much help when the pass rush is non-existent like much of the 1st two preseason games this year. His mistakes are valuable for learning and for driving the competition for the starting gig. Ringo is a physically gifted athlete that was the furthest thing from a finished product when he entered the NFL draft. Nobody can tell you what will become of him as a player. But he will absolutely have to experience some struggles and learn from those if he will ever become anything more than a backup/ ST player. Dean is an example of a guy with all the tools that was sort of thrust into the starting role after TJ Edwards left. He had his ups and downs (and also the injury that slowed his growth) which created a lot of doubt heading into the 2025 season. It appeared he was behind D. White all through camp and that White was certain to be the starter as he was the only LB that wasn't being rotated in practice off the 1st team defense. When the season began they committed to Dean, eventually releasing White. Dean showed flashes early. He also had a terrible game in tampa with 4 or 5 missed tackles. But he used that as a lesson and grew as a player with experience. He was one of the top LBs in the NFL at the time of his injury.

This year our expectations are high for Q and DeJean (wherever he lines up). That means the other starting CB likely will be a lesser player. I don't know who Vic will ultimately choose as the 3rd CB. I'm not as concerned as many appear to be around here. Even Izel Jenkins was forced to start 5 games on our 1991 defense. I have a feeling we will get a solid performance (overall for the season) from somebody currently on our roster competing for this role.

They ignore all these things and act like they knew all this was going to happen last year. People forget how bad this defense struggled the first few games last year. Most were expecting another collapse

2 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Hmm I don’t disagree but I still think Howie could have done more / better. Why not resign Rodgers? He didn’t cost too much and we have the cap space even at this point that we could have kept him.

Last year at this time Rodgers and Ringo were neck and neck in the CB competition. Ringo was under contract for two more seasons and Rodgers was a FA which is why the team made the decision it did this offseason. So based on everything we saw prior to this preseason, it looked like Ringo's time was approaching. What nobody is really talking about is the loss of Slay, the veteran presence and mentorship that was invaluable to all the young CBs on the roster last season. Obviously we have to replace Slay with a new starter, but having him around like we did was extremely helpful to the CB room last year.

Ringo has had struggles the last few weeks. With no real mentor it's going to be a bigger challenge for him to figure out how to overcome that. The coaches will do their jobs and are hoping competition does its thing. Most likely we are going to see Jackson start early while Ringo figures out how to overcome his struggles. Jackson may not be anything special at this point, but he could be a Steven Nelson type contributor if he ends up as the starter. Meanwhile, Ringo and Bennett can battle for playing time in practice.

51 minutes ago, brkmsn said:

Last year at this time Rodgers and Ringo were neck and neck in the CB competition. Ringo was under contract for two more seasons and Rodgers was a FA which is why the team made the decision it did this offseason. So based on everything we saw prior to this preseason, it looked like Ringo's time was approaching. What nobody is really talking about is the loss of Slay, the veteran presence and mentorship that was invaluable to all the young CBs on the roster last season. Obviously we have to replace Slay with a new starter, but having him around like we did was extremely helpful to the CB room last year.

Ringo has had struggles the last few weeks. With no real mentor it's going to be a bigger challenge for him to figure out how to overcome that. The coaches will do their jobs and are hoping competition does its thing. Most likely we are going to see Jackson start early while Ringo figures out how to overcome his struggles. Jackson may not be anything special at this point, but he could be a Steven Nelson type contributor if he ends up as the starter. Meanwhile, Ringo and Bennett can battle for playing time in practice.

Ringo and Rodgers may have been neck and neck at this time last year but ultimately they played Rodgers. And Rodgers has the experience and had proven he could play in the NFL whereas Ringo still hasn’t.

I agree the loss of Slay as a leader and the experience he brought is a huge loss for sure… But we are where we are and what seems clear is that we need to trade for a CB2 because the options we have are a major risk.

I think they might want to see what they have in Bennett before they make a move. After all, he just got here and has had very little time to 'get up to speed' on Fangio's defense. I imagine Bennett will play this coming Friday, see how he does then see who becomes available after waivers/cuts.

5 hours ago, Bwestbrook36 said:

They ignore all these things and act like they knew all this was going to happen last year. People forget how bad this defense struggled the first few games last year. Most were expecting another collapse

I honestly thought that the defense was going to be worst in the league last year with Fangio. I happily ate big crow on that one.

I still think Ringo is going to be fine and the secondary will be top 5 if the safety play is decent. We won't learn much in preseason.

17 hours ago, brkmsn said:

People weren't saying our depth was great before the (2024) season. Many fans complained Slay was too old and declining, Rodgers hadn't played for a year and was not very special before that. Maddox was everybody's whipping boy. Q was an unproven rookie and DeJean was hurt in camp and missed valuable rookie learning time. Tyler Hall was many people's hopeful savior to keep Maddox from making the 53.

While Ringo has not looked all that great in the preseason, he has played reasonably well with the 1st team defense in his limited opportunities in real games. It's not much help when the pass rush is non-existent like much of the 1st two preseason games this year. His mistakes are valuable for learning and for driving the competition for the starting gig. Ringo is a physically gifted athlete that was the furthest thing from a finished product when he entered the NFL draft. Nobody can tell you what will become of him as a player. But he will absolutely have to experience some struggles and learn from those if he will ever become anything more than a backup/ ST player. Dean is an example of a guy with all the tools that was sort of thrust into the starting role after TJ Edwards left. He had his ups and downs (and also the injury that slowed his growth) which created a lot of doubt heading into the 2025 season. It appeared he was behind D. White all through camp and that White was certain to be the starter as he was the only LB that wasn't being rotated in practice off the 1st team defense. When the season began they committed to Dean, eventually releasing White. Dean showed flashes early. He also had a terrible game in tampa with 4 or 5 missed tackles. But he used that as a lesson and grew as a player with experience. He was one of the top LBs in the NFL at the time of his injury.

This year our expectations are high for Q and DeJean (wherever he lines up). That means the other starting CB likely will be a lesser player. I don't know who Vic will ultimately choose as the 3rd CB. I'm not as concerned as many appear to be around here. Even Izel Jenkins was forced to start 5 games on our 1991 defense. I have a feeling we will get a solid performance (overall for the season) from somebody currently on our roster competing for this role.

I think this is a bit disingenuous. As replacing Bradbury was really what everyone desired, and we added 2 1st round talent DBs and were able to activate Rodgers who had 9 games of starting experience, and seen as a ton of potential.

So adding 3 younger options, whilst having Ringo, Ricks, Hall and Maddox on the roster I’d say was much deeer regardless of what you think. During the draft last year I mentioned that CB would be the hardest position to make the team.

Also, even if it was hindsight 20/20 - we played a full season last year and knew what depth we had by the end of it. We lost 3 of our top 6 DBs, and replaced them with Makuba and Adoree Jackson.

I think it’s entirely fair to see a drop in depth and quality if our competition of starts is between a fringe player and our 5th CB last season.

It's a good thing they had Q work on shadowing. Otherwise teams will just avoid his side the entire season and pick on whoever is CB2

1 hour ago, GoEagles614 said:

I think this is a bit disingenuous. As replacing Bradbury was really what everyone desired, and we added 2 1st round talent DBs and were able to activate Rodgers who had 9 games of starting experience, and seen as a ton of potential.

So adding 3 younger options, whilst having Ringo, Ricks, Hall and Maddox on the roster I’d say was much deeer regardless of what you think. During the draft last year I mentioned that CB would be the hardest position to make the team.

Also, even if it was hindsight 20/20 - we played a full season last year and knew what depth we had by the end of it. We lost 3 of our top 6 DBs, and replaced them with Makuba and Adoree Jackson.

I think it’s entirely fair to see a drop in depth and quality if our competition of starts is between a fringe player and our 5th CB last season.

Once again, that's with an assumption that nobody else improves over last season. Both Mitchell and DeJean were rookies learning on the job. It's reasonable to expect both players to be better this season. I thought Rodgers played well overall when called upon last season. He was usually in good position, but didn't make every play that was right there.

Everybody knew the plan last year was we had Slay for 2024 and were parting ways after the season. We also knew we were dumping Bradberry after the season since there was no financial benefit to do that any earlier. Very few Eagles fans were as high on Maddox as I was (by "high" I mean didn't root for him to get cut/dumped) and so I do acknowledge that he was important, versatile depth that we lost after the season. The CJGJ trade surprised me and I liked his playmaking ability and versatility as well. None of those guys are irreplaceable. Mitchell and DeJean were drafted with that in mind last year. Makuba was drafted as a result this year and McWilliams was drafted to add depth. We were able to see a little from Ringo last year and he wasn't bad.

I liken the Jackson signing to the Steven Nelson signing a few years ago. If the younger guys don't work their way on to the field this season, he brings experience and can be solid. Hopefully someone younger does push for playing time and get on the field. But they just may need a little more time for now.

I don't think our depth is bad. I just wish someone was clearly standing out as the frontrunner for the starting spot.

It's Jackson's job to lose. Ringo may just get cut.