https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/has-darius-slay-been-cornerback1-eagles-wanted-2020-season
 

Has Slay been the CB1 the Eagles wanted in 2020?

 

Dave Zangaro

With just one game left to go in the 2020 season, Jim Schwartz on Tuesday was asked if bringing in Slay has had the desired effect.

"It certainly didn't show up in the stat sheet as far as like interceptions and things like that,” Schwartz said. "But there were a lot of games that quarterbacks didn't throw very much at him, including this last game.”

It can be tough to judge cornerbacks from stats alone. In fact, Big Play Slay didn’t pick up his first interception until Week 16 against the Cowboys.

Schwartz’s main point on Tuesday was that Slay’s coverage ability allows him to call games differently defensively and, oftentimes, Slay’s contributions are overlooked. In all, Schwartz gave a 500-plus-word answer when asked about Slay on Tuesday, but back to the question at hand:

Has it had the desired effect?

"It's probably an incomplete when it comes to how it's gone, but I do think that it's — he's done yeoman's work when it comes to the things that we've asked him to do, and like I said, it doesn't always show up on the stat sheet,” Schwartz said.

This season in 14 games, Slay has given up 57 catches on 74 targets for 740 yards, according to ProFootballFocus. That comes out to 4.07 receptions and 52.9 yards per game.

Not bad, but not great either.

It’s also fair to say that when Slay faced two of the best receivers in the NFL, he didn’t have his best games. Those games came in back-to-back weeks against the Seahawks and Packers.

D.K. Metcalf caught 8 passes on 11 targets for 158 yards against Slay in Week 12.

And Davante Adams caught 6 passes on 7 targets for 100 yards and 2 touchdowns against Slay in Week 13.

Schwartz would argue that Slay’s willingness to cover those top receivers 1-on-1 allowed him to give help elsewhere. But even Slay admitted fault for that Seattle game, saying it was the worst game of his career.

There’s some middle ground here, of course. Did Slay’s cover ability allow Schwartz to do some other things defensively? Sure. Would you also like to see Slay make some of those plays? Absolutely.

While those matchups weren’t great for Slay, he did pretty well against some other top receivers this season. Here’s a sampling of his work against top receivers this year, per ProFootballFocus:

Terry McLaurin — 3 targets, 2 catches, 28 yards

Cooper Kupp — 2 targets, 1 catch, 5 yards

Robert Woods — 2 targets, 1 catch 13 yards

A.J. Green — 5 targets, 4 catches, 31 yards

JuJu Smith-Schuster — 2 targets, 1 catch, 11 yards

 

Chase Claypool — 4 targets, 2 catches, 26 yards

Darius Slayton (2 games) — 7 targets, 6 catches, 94 yards 

Michael Gallup (2 games) — 4 targets, 3 catches, 28 yards

Jarvis Landry — 1 target, 1 catch, 13 yards

DK Metcalf — 11 targets, 8 catches, 158 yards

Davante Adams — 7 targets, 6 catches, 100 yards, 2 TDs

Michael Thomas — 3 targets, 3 catches, 33 yards

Amari Cooper (2 games) — 1 target, 1 catch, 35 yards

It’s important to note that Slay missed Week 15 with a concussion, so we never got to see him go up against DeAndre Hopkins, who might have been the biggest test of the season. But if coming into this year, I told you that Slay was able to slow down Cooper and McLaurin, you’d probably think he had a great season.

"He shadowed the best receivers. He's made some guys disappear,” Schwartz said. "He's had a couple games that he wasn't — he probably wasn't at the top of his game, but I think that more falls to the NFL and the load that we put on him and knowing that you're not going to pitch a shutout against great receivers every single week.

"When we've been at our best, we've been a man (coverage) team. Sometimes we've had injuries and we've had to go away from that and those things, but there were times early in the season that we were playing a ton of man and we were having good success with it, and I think a lot of that did have to do with Darius and his ability to match up on wide receivers.”

Did Slay live up to expectations in his first year in Philly? I guess that depends on what those expectations were.

In any case, Slay is under contract for two more seasons and cutting him before 2021 wouldn’t be financially viable. So, barring a trade, he’ll be back next season at age 30.

When we look at Slay’s overall body of work this year, maybe he didn’t prove to be one of the elite, shutdown corners in the NFL. But he was pretty good. And he’s clearly the best cornerback the Eagles have had in years.

Slay is the only quality player in the secondary.  Their secondary sucks, they haven't drafted a quality corner in almost 20 years.  

Did you mean to put this in 411?

I don't think Slay has been worth that contract but he's miles ahead of everything else we have

Needs a competent CB2 and safety alongside him. Some LBs that can cover would help too.

Here's to hoping they fill some of those holes in the 2021 draft.

So according to your data he had 3 bad games?  That’s actually pretty great in a passing league. That has to be top 6-7 in the league. Our corners usually have 16 bad games. Every corner has bad games - even ramsey and gilmore. Slay is worth every dollar. Some of y’all think just because he’s not an interception machine that he’s not good

So we should have kept Jenkins and Kept Mills at corner?

1 hour ago, Iggles25 said:

Needs a competent CB2 and safety alongside him. Some LBs that can cover would help too.

Here's to hoping they fill some of those holes in the 2021 draft.

They've been needing that for a couple decades.  Look at who's doing the drafting.  

I'll reserve my opinion on Slay for the time being but thus far I'm not overly impressed, while he may look good compared to what we've trotted on the field he doesn't look extraordinary, I saw too much easy pitch and catch throws due to large cushions he was giving.  

"there were a lot of games that quarterbacks didn't throw very much at him, including this last game.” means nothing, I'm concerned with what happens when they do throw at him. 

3 hours ago, Iggles25 said:

Needs a competent CB2 and safety alongside him. Some LBs that can cover would help too.

Here's to hoping they fill some of those holes in the 2021 draft.

And a DC that doesn’t suck. 

Did Slay help?  Yes.

Was Slay the best DB on the team?  Yes.

Was the trade & sign worth it?  No.

Did Slay have the impact the Eagles expected?  No.

Did Slay have the impact that should have been expected of a soon-to-be 30 year old CB in a passing league that makes it impossible to shut down WR's?   Yes.

Will the value only get worse?  Yes.

1 hour ago, EagleVA said:

I'll reserve my opinion on Slay for the time being but thus far I'm not overly impressed, while he may look good compared to what we've trotted on the field he doesn't look extraordinary, I saw too much easy pitch and catch throws due to large cushions he was giving.  

"there were a lot of games that quarterbacks didn't throw very much at him, including this last game.” means nothing, I'm concerned with what happens when they do throw at him. 

Omg.  Offensive coordinators in 13 of our 15 games up to this point have specifically designed game that avoided Slay altogether..  If they were in the game plan, QBs ignored them because of Slay's impact.  "Means nothing."  

If you expect a corner in today's NFL to look like Revis in his prime, you'll be disappointed for a very long time.  

3 hours ago, EazyEaglez said:

So we should have kept Jenkins and Kept Mills at corner?

No

32 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Did Slay help?  Yes.

Was Slay the best DB on the team?  Yes.

Was the trade & sign worth it?  No.

Did Slay have the impact the Eagles expected?  No.

Did Slay have the impact that should have been expected of a soon-to-be 30 year old CB in a passing league that makes it impossible to shut down WR's?   Yes.

Will the value only get worse?  Yes.

Pretty much covers it all

Though it wouldn't take much to be the best DB on the team

I remember people on here saying he'd be great though. I questioned whether Schwartz would still have him give 10yd cushions and they said no

1 hour ago, eagle45 said:

Did Slay help?  Yes.

Was Slay the best DB on the team?  Yes.

Was the trade & sign worth it?  No.

Did Slay have the impact the Eagles expected?  No.

Did Slay have the impact that should have been expected of a soon-to-be 30 year old CB in a passing league that makes it impossible to shut down WR's?   Yes.

Will the value only get worse?  Yes.

If our offense was even remotely close to average, our defense would have ended up being much better than what it was even with this personnel. Almost every game this season the defense had excellent starts and it wasn’t until they got gassed being on the field due to continuous 3 and outs by the offense that they started giving up points. 
 

Like Schwartz said, having Slay shut down a whole side of the field in 13 of the 15 games is a pretty tremendous accomplishment in 2020 passing league. I’d say that’s definitely living up to what they expected getting him. Were people really expecting him to shut down every single receiver every game? 

1 hour ago, hputenis said:

Omg.  Offensive coordinators in 13 of our 15 games up to this point have specifically designed game that avoided Slay altogether..  If they were in the game plan, QBs ignored them because of Slay's impact.  "Means nothing."  

If you expect a corner in today's NFL to look like Revis in his prime, you'll be disappointed for a very long time.  

Reserve his opinion lol. He has done nothing but, give his opinion on him since week one lol. 

28 minutes ago, wtfcares said:

If our offense was even remotely close to average, our defense would have ended up being much better than what it was even with this personnel. Almost every game this season the defense had excellent starts and it wasn’t until they got gassed being on the field due to continuous 3 and outs by the offense that they started giving up points. 
 

Like Schwartz said, having Slay shut down a whole side of the field in 13 of the 15 games is a pretty tremendous accomplishment in 2020 passing league. I’d say that’s definitely living up to what they expected getting him. Were people really expecting him to shut down every single receiver every game? 

I’m fine with a narrative that defends Slay, but I’m not really ok with the investment.

Slay plus our secondary are not nearly as good as 5 merely above average DBs who were less expensive.  
 

It’s so easy to pass in this NFL; there’s no point in investing in a Slay when your weakest link is Maddox.  You might as well start Maddox x2 because you are getting beat on every 3rd and long either way.  

I don’t think you can argue Slay didn’t help.  Overall he’s been pretty solid.  But pretty solid doesn’t define a "CB1”.  And while I like him, I would not have made the deal ... the draft picks and cap space would have been better off used on potential longer term fixture(s).  By the time we’re competitive again Slay will be toast.  

Yes

Next Question

8 hours ago, Mike030270 said:

Did you mean to put this in 411?

I don't think Slay has been worth that contract but he's miles ahead of everything else we have

Yup. Put it in Tate by accident.

Somehow Prime Deion would have been an average CB in this defense 

He is about the only true baller back there. He had an ok year.

Slay should be given the Arthur Blank courage award for playing along side that garbage supporting cast and playing as well as he did.  

I think we can go back and forth on this. I think there's an argument either way to be honest... At times he's been very good, at others he's not been so good. The biggest issue though in my opinion is that this is probably the best version of Slay that the Eagles are going to get. And so given the picks they gave up and the contract he's got I'm not sure overall the trade was worth it. 

On 12/30/2020 at 3:20 PM, Mike030270 said:

Did you mean to put this in 411?

I don't think Slay has been worth that contract but he's miles ahead of everything else we have

Miles ahead of anything we've had since the Sheldon Asante era, tbf.

31 minutes ago, EagleMatt said:

Miles ahead of anything we've had since the Sheldon Asante era, tbf.

I was really hoping Jones was going to turn out for us. I don't watch college ball so when everyone on tv and on the board here were saying it was a steal and he was the best CB in the draft...I was excited. Damn shame it didn't work out

I agree with Schwartz on Slay.  Slay does a lot of things that don't how up on the stat sheet, especially with this type of defensive scheme.  And he's been very good for the most part, despite nursing nagging injuries for half the season.