Eagles Battle For Safety

The Philadelphia Eagles are a pretty stacked team going into the 2009-10 NFL Season but there is one or two positions that aren’t totally secured. Those positions are the two safety spots. That’s not a surprise after losing both starters, Sean Considine and the great Brian Dawkins. Even with the spots not secured the team is still in pretty good shape there.

The team has youngster Quintin Demps and Quintin Mikell listed as their starters, with free agent acquisition Sean Jones backing up. If that stays the way it is that’s not a bad group at all, but will things change?

Jones was a starter for the past three seasons with the Cleveland Browns and one of only three guys who had over 14 interceptions during that time. A player with that talent isn’t going to take coming off the bench lightly. Jones is also only 27 and entering the prime of his career.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says the initial training camp battle will take place between Demps and Jones for the free safety position. How do the two stack up against each other?

Well Jones has a clear size advantage being 6’1 and 220 pounds, while Demps is only 5’11 and 206 pounds. What Demps gives away in size thou he makes up for with his speed, he’s the fastest out of all the teas safeties. The real differences come in experience, Jones has years of it and Demps doesn’t.

Demps is entering second NFL season after an up and down rookie year. He performed pretty well early in the season, earning himself a spot in nickel and dime formations late in the year. He did pretty well during that run as well, till the NFC Championship game where all the things unraveled for him. What he’s going to have to do in training camp is show that he’s learned from his mistakes.

With all that being said Demps is currently the starter on the depth chart. To hold on to that he just has to play like he did last year and show he’s learned from his mistakes. If Demps does hold on to that job, then Jones would most likely be relegated to the free and strong safety backup jobs.

I say most likely because Jones could earn the strong side spot instead. Mikell has a better hold of that job then Demps has of is, but that could still change. I believe there is only two ways that Jones take that job away from Mikell. One would be injury. The second would be Mikell coming into camp out of shape and dropping a complete dud, which I doubt happens.

It’s going to be pretty hard for Jones to beat out either guy for a starting position but he’s definitely going to make this the positional battle to watch during camp. If Jones fails to win either job, he’ll back up both guys and the Eagles still wind up winners. Jones would easily be one of the best backup safeties in the NFL.

With this the only real question mark on the roster its a great situation for the Eagles and their fans.

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Tags: NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Quintin Demps, Quintin Mikell, Sean Jones