The excellence of the Eagles starting cornerbacks Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown was on display today at Lehigh University.
I've never seen a cornerback get a better jump on the ball than Samuel. He reads routes better than anybody in the league.
Samuel has worked on playing receivers out of the press technique. It's not his favorite thing but he has shown the ability to move up on a receiver, jam him and shut him down.
Still he prefers to play off of the receiver so he can see the quarterback and get an idea of what the route is by what the quarterback and the receiver are doing.
I guess the Eagles are going to have to get some gloves with glue on them for cornerback Samuel. He has dropped too many interceptions during this training camp but he hasn't had any problems getting his hands on the football.
Brown has been having an outstanding camp as well. He is the more physical of the two and has shown to jam a wide receiver so aggressively that they don't want run any other routes on his side.
He doesn't get his hands on as many passes as Samuel but he is nearly always very close to the receiver he's covering.
He loves to play coverage out of the press technique. His method when he's playing off of a receiver is taking away what he wants to do. He contests for balls but he doesn't have a clean breaks on the ball which I see in Samuel's game.
When it comes to tackling Brown is head and shoulders above Asante. He tackles like a safety.
I have seen Samuel smack some receivers but he's not a physical corner, whereas Brown is about as physical as you can be now-a-days in this league.
There were times today in the blitz drills when McNabb and the other quarterbacks had no where to go with the football. Much of the credit for that solid coverage has to go to Samuel and Brown.
