Second-Year Safety Ed Reynolds Stands Out In Eagles Secondary

In the Eagles secondary, I wasn’t thrilled about the play of Byron Maxwell and Nolan Carroll at the corner positions.  They weren’t in the game for a long time, but each of them gave up easy throws to Andrew Luck.  Maxwell was playing off of rookie Phillip Dorsett when he ran a deep out.  Carroll couldn’t stop the big and physical Andre Johnson from running a slant route. Normally Maxwell is always up in the face of the receiver.

Rookie cornerback Eric Rowe was beaten badly by the speedy rookie Dorsett, but he caught the Colts wideout and punched the ball out.  The Eagles defensive backs have been focusing on attacking the football when receivers catch it and trying to get it out and cause a turnover. This attitude will continue to help this football team because turnovers decide a lot of football games.

Backup safety Ed Reynolds stood out and put himself in position to make this football team or get picked up by another team, if he gets released.  First, Reynolds picked off a pass on a post route, while playing the deep middle safety position.  The second-year safety also picked off an out route which was telegraphed and thrown late by young Colts quarterback, Bryan Bennett.  Still Reynolds made good plays on both throws and he almost grabbed another throw by Bennett on a short hook route that he anticipated.

Getting your hand on three passes in such a short period of time isn’t a coincidence.  Reynolds has forced Kelly and staff to close look at him.

“I thought he showed up today”, Chip Kelly said after the game.  “He showed up, not only two interceptions but had a big tackle on the kickoff return after that late in the game.  I think he’s a guy that’s pushing to make the 53‑man roster and I’m happy for him right now.  Part of it — we put a big emphasis on how you play in the game.  It’s not just our training sessions.  It’s how do you play when it’s live full go and let’s go.  And I thought Ed did a nice job and put himself in a pretty good situation coming out of game one.  We’ll see how he grows from here.”

Throughout camp, Reynolds, who was a fifth round pick in 2014 and spent last year on the practice squad, has showed that he does a good job of playing the pure safety position.  What I mean by that statement is that he reads the quarterback as well as any of the other safeties on the team including Malcolm Jenkins.   He knows how to get everybody lined up correctly and he’s got a good understanding of the secondary adjustments to every formation and motion.

“It felt amazing. It made me feel like I was in college again”, Reynolds said. “That was my thing in college – to go out there and be a ball-hawk and give our offense more opportunities. It felt good, but it wasn’t like I was going out there and doing anything crazy. I was just playing our scheme and having good eyes on the quarterback and breaking and believing what I saw.”

The reason Reynolds wasn’t at the front of the line at the safety position was because of all the man-to-man coverage they ask their safeties to do.   He’s got better playing man-to-man but it’s not the strength of his game.  He’s a smart football player, who understands the game and has a feel for where the quarterback is going with the football.

Cornerback E.J. Biggers did a nice job on a trail route, where he shadowed the receiver, then knocked the football down at the last split second.

Chris Marragos and Chris Prosinki was very active in the Birds secondary.  They each had two tackles and will likely be key members of the Eagles special teams units.