Philadelphia Eagles: Desmond King could finally fix the secondary

[brkmsn]

 

Quote

 

Darius Slay and Desmond King can be the Philadelphia Eagles’ future.

In 2019, the Philadelphia Eagles had a chance to fix their secondary midseason by trading a third-round pick to the Denver Broncos for Chris Harris.

Obviously, that didn’t happen; the Eagles deemed the price too high, lost to the Seattle Seahawks in the Wild Card round, and eventually surrendered a pair of picks to add arguably the second-best cornerback in the game, Darius Slay, from the Detroit Lions.

 

And as for Harris? Well, he signed a three-year, $30 million dollar deal with the Los Angeles Chargers at the tender age of 30, where he’d pair up with fellow 80s kid Casey Hayward in Anthony Lynn’s secondary.

Initially, many assumed that Harris would play outside for the Chargers on the outside opposite Hayward, but much like in his final season in Denver, the four-time Pro Bowler eventually kicked back to his natural position in the slot, leading to fourth-year cornerback Michael Davis finally getting a chance to start full time.

But you know what they say, when one player gets a chance, it has to come at the expense of someone else, and in this particular case, the player who suffered most from Harris’ addition and subsequent move into the slot was fourth-year defensive back, Desmond King.

A fifth-round pick out of Iowa in 2017, King rapidly found a consistent home on the field for the Chargers over his first three seasons with the club – playing an average of 699 defensive snaps per season. In 2018, the Chargers’ lone playoff appearance in the last half-decade, King had the second-highest rating of any cornerback in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus (90.4) en route to an appearance on the Associated Press’ first All-Pro team alongside Kyle Fuller and Stephon Gillmore. King finished out voting with 12 more votes than Harris (16 versus four) and earned more all-purpose DB votes than Jalen Ramsey, Kevin Byard, Jaire Alexander, Tyrann Mathieu, Minkah Fitzpatrick, and Bryce Callahan combined.

King was also named a second-team All-Pro as a punt returner, earning the second most votes behind only Tarik Cohen.

Why is any of this relevant to the Philadelphia Eagles? Well, King and the Chargers’ relationship is fast deteriorating for the world to see on social media, with a midseason separation becoming more and more of a possibility.

You see, between Harris’ addition and Derwin James suffering a season-ending injury, King was moved from slot cornerback to free safety, where he started in Week 1 before falling out of the starting lineup in favor of Delaware second-round pick Nasir Adderley. King still played in each subsequent game, a day after the team’s Week 2 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the 25-year-old shot off a pair of tweets that set this whole string of speculation into action (check them out here).

In Week 3, King’s playing time dropped even further, all the way down to 17 snaps.

 

Had it not been for a Week 3 foot injury to Harris, King would all but certainly be relegated to a dime DB role; a role he will all but surely return to when Harris comes back later this season.

With the Chargers now the not so proud owners of a 1-4 record in the devilishly competitive AFC West, general manager Tom Telesco may be willing to part with his ex-All Pro now over waiting to receive a compensatory pick for his services a few years down the line.

If that’s the case – which our sister site, Bolt Beat believes to be so – Howie Roseman needs to get on the phone right now and lock up King’s services for the rest of the season. -->Link to full article

 

It's an interesting idea. I figured we'd be "sellers" or stay put, but I'm sure Howie will be looking at a lot of possibilities anyway. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

7 hours ago, brkmsn said:

 

It's an interesting idea. I figured we'd be "sellers" or stay put, but I'm sure Howie will be looking at a lot of possibilities anyway. 

I'd actually take a punt on this if it was a late round pick. A fifth or a sixth and I think that's a trade worth making. Bringing in young and potentially cheap talent has to be the focus of this team going forwards. We need depth at CB and we need to look to the future at the position. And Maddox on the outside is not the future. 

[time2rock]

Under the assumption we aren't going to be legitimate title contenders this year, I don't want to be buyers at the trade deadline.  However, that more applies to adding pieces using relatively high picks (4th rd or higher) for short term rentals (i.e. trading a pick for a player in the final year of his current contract).  I don't know what King's contract situation is, but if he is still under contract for a couple more years and could be had for a late round pick, it would certainly be worth taking a flyer on.  While the team needs more than anything young talent on cheap rookie contracts, there would be nothing wrong with dealing a late round pick for a proven player to potentially be a piece of the future (i.e. not just a short term rental).  

[brkmsn]

2 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

I'd actually take a punt on this if it was a late round pick. A fifth or a sixth and I think that's a trade worth making. Bringing in young and potentially cheap talent has to be the focus of this team going forwards. We need depth at CB and we need to look to the future at the position. And Maddox on the outside is not the future. 

The reason it is interesting to me is that he is a young player at the end of his rookie contract. He has had success in the NFL. We have been overwhelmingly young at CB since 2017 and youth hasn't been an issue. Developing our own players has been the issue. Since 2017, the only very good CBs we've had were older vets (Slay / P. Robinson).

What I don't like about this is: You already know this player gets disgruntled easy and is a bit immature on social media. 

The other factor to me is what else we may do before the deadline. If this team opens up some future cap space by unloading some contracts in another move or two, then it may not hurt to add future help now as well. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

23 minutes ago, brkmsn said:

The reason it is interesting to me is that he is a young player at the end of his rookie contract. He has had success in the NFL. We have been overwhelmingly young at CB since 2017 and youth hasn't been an issue. Developing our own players has been the issue. Since 2017, the only very good CBs we've had were older vets (Slay / P. Robinson).

What I don't like about this is: You already know this player gets disgruntled easy and is a bit immature on social media. 

The other factor to me is what else we may do before the deadline. If this team opens up some future cap space by unloading some contracts in another move or two, then it may not hurt to add future help now as well. 

I'm definitely interested in this. I think King could be a really good player but I do agree there are a factors to consider here. I just think there's real potential here... He could develop in to a good #1 or at the very least a very good #2. If we could draft a CB early in the next year or two then we'd really be looking at an exciting CB group. 

[birdman#12]

Chargers could use another TE.........Ertz for King and a pick?

[time2rock]

5 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

I'm definitely interested in this. I think King could be a really good player but I do agree there are a factors to consider here. I just think there's real potential here... He could develop in to a good #1 or at the very least a very good #2. If we could draft a CB early in the next year or two then we'd really be looking at an exciting CB group. 

Is Howie making that pick??

[weko]

5 hours ago, birdman#12 said:

Chargers could use another TE.........Ertz for King and a pick?

For him and a 2 and you have something

[UK_EaglesFan89]

26 minutes ago, time2rock said:

Is Howie making that pick??

Hopefully not. If he is then he'll screw it up we know that. 

[birdman#12]

2 hours ago, weko said:

For him and a 2 and you have something

Ertz isn't worth that.......maybe king and a conditional 3rd?

[weko]

48 minutes ago, birdman#12 said:

Ertz isn't worth that.......maybe king and a conditional 3rd?

He was worth a 2 and something else, but the way he's playing it might be a late 2 or early to mid 3.  Unfortunately I agree.  I couldn't believe last year the Cheaters gave up a 2 for 32 year old WR Sanu, so a late 2 is probably about right.  Would be worth it for a good team without a TE.  Ertz would plays his ass off for a new contract.

[Portyansky]

Yes please. King would be great here.

[time2rock]

16 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Hopefully not. If he is then he'll screw it up we know that. 

With Douglas and Jones balling on their new teams (granted for the latter based on a limited sample size), makes you wonder if perhaps Howie isn't as bad at CB evaluation as we've all thought all along, that perhaps the bigger problems are Schwartz's scheme and player development here.  Seems the young guys we hand pick and try to get NFL ready fail here but those veterans we bring in that have already been developed elsewhere (Robinson, Slay, etc.) seem to fare much better.  Could be the way we need to address the position from now on ... rather than using draft picks to select CBs in the draft we use them to trade to other teams for proven talent or sign them in free agency.  

[20dawk4life]

23 hours ago, time2rock said:

Under the assumption we aren't going to be legitimate title contenders this year, I don't want to be buyers at the trade deadline.  However, that more applies to adding pieces using relatively high picks (4th rd or higher) for short term rentals (i.e. trading a pick for a player in the final year of his current contract).  I don't know what King's contract situation is, but if he is still under contract for a couple more years and could be had for a late round pick, it would certainly be worth taking a flyer on.  While the team needs more than anything young talent on cheap rookie contracts, there would be nothing wrong with dealing a late round pick for a proven player to potentially be a piece of the future (i.e. not just a short term rental).  

He's an UFA at the end of the year. Rather just try to sign him. 

On the down side, from the article, it sounds like he hasn't really played outside too much. We have a ton of Nickell CBs on the roster already. King is short, thick, and kind of slow. He was rumored to be a better safety prospect than CB coming out of the draft. Maybe a 1 or 2 year deal with a new DC and we can see what he has but he'd have to be cheap. 

[time2rock]

58 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

He's an UFA at the end of the year. Rather just try to sign him. 

On the down side, from the article, it sounds like he hasn't really played outside too much. We have a ton of Nickell CBs on the roster already. King is short, thick, and kind of slow. He was rumored to be a better safety prospect than CB coming out of the draft. Maybe a 1 or 2 year deal with a new DC and we can see what he has but he'd have to be cheap. 

Good stuff bro.  Thanks.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

1 hour ago, time2rock said:

With Douglas and Jones balling on their new teams (granted for the latter based on a limited sample size), makes you wonder if perhaps Howie isn't as bad at CB evaluation as we've all thought all along, that perhaps the bigger problems are Schwartz's scheme and player development here.  Seems the young guys we hand pick and try to get NFL ready fail here but those veterans we bring in that have already been developed elsewhere (Robinson, Slay, etc.) seem to fare much better.  Could be the way we need to address the position from now on ... rather than using draft picks to select CBs in the draft we use them to trade to other teams for proven talent or sign them in free agency.  

I definitely think scheme is part of the issue yes. I mean it can't be a coincidence that both Douglas and Jones join new teams and now they look like pretty good NFL corners? That said you still have to put some of it on Howie. Why is he drafting players that aren't necessarily a fit for the scheme? This is where the coaches and FO need to be working together otherwise it all will fall apart.

[Outlaw]

On 10/15/2020 at 8:37 AM, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

I definitely think scheme is part of the issue yes. I mean it can't be a coincidence that both Douglas and Jones join new teams and now they look like pretty good NFL corners? That said you still have to put some of it on Howie. Why is he drafting players that aren't necessarily a fit for the scheme? This is where the coaches and FO need to be working together otherwise it all will fall apart.

They’re both man corners and Douglas DEFINITELY a press man corner. Since Schwartz likes our corners to play off 10 yards, it’s no wonder they went elsewhere and immediately have success. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

6 hours ago, Outlaw said:

They’re both man corners and Douglas DEFINITELY a press man corner. Since Schwartz likes our corners to play off 10 yards, it’s no wonder they went elsewhere and immediately have success. 

Oh there's no doubt about it. Douglas certainly was never used properly in this scheme and was never put in a position to succeed. 

[nipples]

On 10/14/2020 at 6:18 PM, weko said:

He was worth a 2 and something else, but the way he's playing it might be a late 2 or early to mid 3.  Unfortunately I agree.  I couldn't believe last year the Cheaters gave up a 2 for 32 year old WR Sanu, so a late 2 is probably about right.  Would be worth it for a good team without a TE.  Ertz would plays his ass off for a new contract.

With the season Ertz is having, I wouldn’t give up more than a 4th for him if I’m an opposing GM. Not just that he’s playing bad, but is playing poorly primarily due to lack of effort stemming from being a whiny **** over his contract. That isn’t the type of guy I’m wanting to give up a ton of value for. 

[nipples]

7 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Oh there's no doubt about it. Douglas certainly was never used properly in this scheme and was never put in a position to succeed. 

Douglas has been extremely good this year too. He’s been very good all year, and just had probably his best game this past week. Targeted 6 times, allowed only 2 catches for 29 yards, no TDs. Oh, and also had 3 pass deflections. 
 

Douglas on the season:

40 targets, 24 catches, 237 yards, 0TDs, and a 76.8 QB rating when he’s thrown at. Those are phenomenal numbers over 6 games. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

1 minute ago, nipples said:

Douglas has been extremely good this year too. He’s been very good all year, and just had probably his best game this past week. Targeted 6 times, allowed only 2 catches for 29 yards, no TDs. Oh, and also had 3 pass deflections. 
 

Douglas on the season:

40 targets, 24 catches, 237 yards, 0TDs, and a 76.8 QB rating when he’s thrown at. Those are phenomenal numbers over 6 games. 

And the thing is... I don't think that's a huge surprise to a lot of us. I think he's a good CB if used in the right way and put in situations to succeed. Leaving him on an island with no help over the top is a sure fire way for him to struggle. 

[Road to Victory]

The best fix for the secondary would be getting rid of Schwartz and his stupid defensive game plan.

[PoconoDon]

Sell, sell, sell.

[time2rock]

King traded to a Tennessee for a 6th rd pick.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/11/02/chargers-trade-desmond-king-to-titans/

[Jeep_man]

On 10/22/2020 at 1:01 AM, nipples said:

Douglas has been extremely good this year too. He’s been very good all year, and just had probably his best game this past week. Targeted 6 times, allowed only 2 catches for 29 yards, no TDs. Oh, and also had 3 pass deflections. 
 

Douglas on the season:

40 targets, 24 catches, 237 yards, 0TDs, and a 76.8 QB rating when he’s thrown at. Those are phenomenal numbers over 6 games. 

Yikes... I remember the game against KC a few years ago and Douglas was used as a press corner against Tyreek Hill and practically shut hill down and kept him quiet all game. You know our Jimmy Shortz, if something works, he immediately stops doing.  Wonder how Sidney Jones is going..