Philadelphia Eagles second-round rookie Cooper DeJean made his first start against the Cleveland Browns, filling in at slot corner for an ineffective Avonte Maddox. DeJean's performance wasn't perfect, but he had an encouraging starting debut.
Coverage
DeJean was strong in coverage.
Let's start with what I thought was his best coverage rep of the day. The Browns are running a fake bubble screen, with DeJean's man feigning like he's just a blocker on the play before trying to take DeJean deep. DeJean doesn't bite, and then stays in phase throughout the route. Well done.
Here he is, left slot, blanketing Amari Cooper across the field:
Here he follows Elijah Moore across the formation, sticks with Moore on the comeback route, and then helps shepherd Deshaun Watson out of bounds.
I do think DeJean left one potential big play on the table. Here he is in zone coverage. He seems to read where Watson is going, but he is too late to trust what he sees, and Watson fits the telegraphed throw into a tight window on a slant route to Cooper.
He does have some responsibility on the slot receiver here, so this critique might be a little nit-picky, but had DeJean reacted a little earlier to that throw, he might've forced Watson to go to his next read, or possibly even come up with a pick-six. That will come with time and more reps.
Tackling
Again, let's start with a positive. The following was DeJean's other very good play. DeJean's man is Moore, who is lined up in the backfield. He has to work through other Eagles defenders to get to the perimeter and is able to do so in a hurry, aggressively getting Moore to the ground after a short gain. This is really well done.
But again, he wasn't perfect. DeJean had an opportunity to make a tackle short of the first down marker, aaaaand oops!
That missed tackle ended up being inconsequential, as there was an offensive holding call on the play.
Blitzing
DeJean did a nice job disguising his blitzes.
Here he came free on a blitz and jumped into Watson's potential passing lane, giving Moro Ojomo extra time to get to Watson. DeJean then helped get Watson to the ground.
Here his times out his blitz out perfectly, but, dude… finish.
I guess he eventually did help get Watson to the ground for a sack along with some teammates, but you know what I mean.
Punt returns
With Britain Covey on injured reserve, DeJean filled in as the starting punt returner. After his teammates threw defenders at him and even ran into him on their own Week 4 in Tampa, DeJean had a much less turbulent day as a punt returner against the Browns. 4 returns, 51 yards, 12.5 yards per return, long of 19 yards. Generally speaking, I thought he did a nice job of making the first defender miss on his returns.
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He did field a punt inside the 5, though he did have room to return that punt. Normally punt returners aren't fielding punts inside the 5, but the trend on that seems to be changing a bit, with punters becoming so good a hitting pitching wedge punts that check up when they land. I won't have an opportunity to ask special teams coordinator Michael Clay what he'd have preferred DeJean do on that particular punt return before we publish this review.
Miscellaneous
And finally, one last little inconsequential clip of DeJean knocking RT Jack Conklin back on a blitz.
Obviously, Conklin outweighs DeJean by 100+ pounds.
Overview
Rookie first-round CB Quinyon Mitchell has already shown intriguing potential as a long-term fixture at outside corner for the Eagles. They hope that DeJean and Kelee Ringo can also develop into good NFL starters.
We'll see, but for the first time in a while the Eagles do seem to have some encouraging young players at corner.
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