Going into week one, the Philadelphia Eagles had a huge matchup advantage over a relatively weak Atlanta Falcons secondary. While they didn’t make them pay with huge shots down the field, Jalen Hurts and an exciting young WR group picked the group apart en-route to 264 receiving yards and a total of three receiving touchdowns. The matchup against San Francisco may prove to be more difficult, but the Eagles have a nearly identical matchup leaning heavily in their favor.
Jason Verrett looked to have finally broken the injury curse last year after playing 13 games, only to tear his ACL in week 1. The man opposite him, Emmanuel Moseley, missed the opener with a knee injury and will be questionable ahead of this weekend.
This means that we could see fifth-round rookie Deommodore Lenoir line up outside, or Ambry Thomas, who was a healthy scratch in week one.
Lenoir had a really strong preseason, snagging a pair of interceptions, and carried that over into week one. He looked really solid, allowing 1 reception on 4 targets. He seems like the more viable option to see reps out of the two rookies.
An ageing Josh Norman and Dre Kirkpatrick act as emergency players, with second-year corner Cam Dantzler waiting in the wings. None of the three should scare Jalen Hurts or the Eagles receivers. Neither should 30-year-old K’Waun Williams, who will be working in the slot on Sunday and had a minimal impact in week one.
Any time a team is without its starting two corners, alarm bells should ring and the Eagles know this more than most. Nobody is expecting Nick Sirianni to call 87 deep shots on Sunday. In fact, with that pass-rush looking as dangerous as ever, it’s probably best that he doesn’t. However, if he can put trust in his playmakers to dominate in the open-field, exactly as he did in week one, then we could very easily see another encouraging showing from the likes of DeVonta Smith and Jalen Reagor, pushing the team in a strong position to win the first home game of the Nick Sirianni era.
Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire
