Free Safety, Tre Boston
How Tre Boston is a free agent is frankly beyond me at this point. Unless there’s something we don’t know with regards to his attitude, effort levels in practice etc, it just doesn’t make sense.
He’s still 26 years old and after the free agency market dried up last year, his 79 tackle, 5 interception season wasn’t enough for teams to somehow want to take the plunge. Boston gambled on himself and took a late prove-it contract with the Cardinals, in a season where he (shockingly) exceeded expectations again.
Boston tallied another 79 tackles, 3 interceptions, a career-high 9 passes defensed and forced a fumble. Yet here he is, unsigned. The former fourth-round pick now has more than a solid resume at free safety and the Eagles may want an extra insurance policy behind Rodney McLeod. As we learned last year, you can never have too much defensive back depth…and Boston just seems to constantly shine, even if the world does refuse to notice.
Tight End, A.J Derby
The former Pats TE missed most of last season with a foot injury, catching just 3 passes for 48 yards and a touchdown in 4 games. The Dolphins eventually placed Derby on IR in December after beginning the season as Miami’s top tight end target. At 27-years old, Derby still has his best years ahead of him.
A former 2015 sixth-round selection, Derby spent his rookie year on IR before being traded to the Broncos one year later. He was moved to the Dolphins in the heart of the season, as he was to the Broncos one year before, meaning that the tight end should now be available cheap and could just need some stability without the pressure of needing to be a top TE receiving option as he was in Denver and Miami.
Enter the Philadelphia Eagles.
If you cast your minds back to the opening few weeks of last season, Dallas Goedert was rarely used at all, while Joshua Perkins somewhat squandering the opportunities handed to him. An injury to Richard Rodgers really didn’t help matters and by the time the Eagles started shifting their offense to a primary base of 12-personnel, the addition of a third tight end would’ve been extremely valuable…just look at Trey Burton’s production in his final year as an Eagle.
13-personnel was a huge part of the Eagles success both on the ground and through the air during their iconic Super Bowl run and Derby would provide the receiving threat to line up with Goedert and Ertz in a package that would simply be terrifying, allowing Richard Rodgers to return to his role as an in-line blocker.
