Seattle’s Competitive Fire Spreading To Eagles Secondary?

Eagles new cornerback Byron Maxwell and new safety Walter Thurmond have brought over some of the competitive fire that you’ve seen in Seattle the last few years.  It’s a “Get up on that guy and blanket him” type of mentality.

The Seahawks defense competes at a higher level than the rest of the league.  Yes, they have good players, but their secondary gives you noting. They compete at a higher level than the rest of the league.

That’s the reason cornerback Maxwell got the $10 million dollars a year deal.  I’m excited about the potential I see.

This off season, I talked to Ken Norton, who is the new defensive coordinator of the Oakland Raiders, about how he is trying to take that competitiveness to Oakland.  Norton was a young, developing linebacker years ago, when I was finishing my career with the Cowboys.  He grew into a Super Bowl Champion and All-Pro linebacker, who knows about how a championship team should practice.

Ken Norton knows how to practice.  Seattle knows how to practice and Maxwell and Thurmond know how to practice, which is a good thing for the Philadelphia Eagles.

I’m seeing some of that in the defense by the way Maxwell competes and tries to shut down everything the receivers tried to do.  Maxwell made a nice play yesterday on a deep throw by Bradford down the right sideline to Nelson Agholor in the end zone.  Like all of his throws, Bradford let it go with ease.  The throw was on the money and Agholor had a step on Maxwell, but the veteran defensive back got his hand in there at the last split-second to get that football out of there.

Then he got up and showed some of the emotion, you like to see.  You don’t want to show up your teammates at the same time, you have to battle your teammates in order to enhance your team’s level of play. It’s important to Maxwell to win in practice and that’s the kind of attitude you have on the good teams in the league.

I loved the competition and the battling I saw yesterday between the receivers and the defensive backs and linebackers.  Guys were up in the face of the receivers trying to take everything away from him.  The receivers were competing and fighting off the jams.

Zach Ertz and Kiko Alonso exchanged words after Alonso snuck up on Ertz and got a good jam on him when he was playing him man-to-man in the 7-on-7 drill.   This shows me the young man thinks and realizes you have to keep your opponent guessing.  Alonso will be a good matchup with the tight ends in the league.  He can run and he stands about 6’3″.

I had to mess with Najee Goode, who had the chance to make two big plays on interceptions, but he wasn’t able to come down with the football.  On the second play, Goode could have returned it for a touchdown.  It was a pass by Matt Barkley and it was right in his hands.  I like the way he’s breaking on the football.