On the night the Eagles drafted Quinyon Mitchell, general manager Howie Roseman had an important message for the rookie about his new mentor Darius Slay.
Roseman delivered it on a FaceTime call.
“I want you to live next door to Slay,” Roseman said.” I want you to sleep next to Slay…”
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Mitchell cut him off.
“I might move in with him,” the first-round pick said. “Real talk.”
As Slay enters his 12th NFL season at age 33, he knows the end of his career is nearing. He made his sixth Pro Bowl (third with the Eagles) in 2023 but Father Time is undefeated. And as much as the Eagles need Slay to play at that level again this season, a big part of his role will be to mentor rookies Mitchell and second-round pick Cooper DeJean.
“I’m here to give them the blueprint for everything to make sure they succeed at this level,” Slay said this spring. “That’s my job to do.”
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It’s a role Slay is taking very seriously.
Because over a decade ago, he was that same wide-eyed rookie. And he moved in next door to a veteran too.
A new home in Detroit
When Glover Quin showed up in Detroit for offseason workouts in 2013 after signing a five-year deal as a free agent from Houston, he wasn’t just supposed to be a centerpiece of the defense. He was also expected to become a veteran leader for a team coming off a four-win season and hoping to turn things around.
A few weeks after the Lions signed Quin, they drafted Slay in the second round out of Mississippi State. The Lions’ GM at the time, Martin Mayhew, approached Quin that spring and asked him to take Slay under his wing, show him the ropes.
Quin had just one request in return: He wanted Slay’s locker stall moved next to his at the team facility.
“I knew how much valuable time you spend in the locker room,” Quin said to NBC Sports Philadelphia this summer. “That’s where a lot of relationships and bonds and stuff happen, in the locker room. Because there were other guys in lockers around me, I told [Mayhew], ‘If you really want that to happen, then you gotta put his locker right next to mine.’ Because if you do that, every day we get to talk to each other. I’m seeing him every morning, every day before practice. I’m seeing how he’s preparing for practice, how he’s coming in to practice, how he’s coming in, in the morning time, how he’s going home. I’m seeing everything and he’s seeing everything that I’m doing.
“It’s just an easier thing when we’re locker mates, then we get to talk all the time. So next thing you know, boom, they move some guys to the other side of the locker room and Slay’s locker is right next to mine.”
And they never moved. For their entire six years together as teammates in Detroit — even after the more in-demand end lockers opened up — Slay and Quin remained neighbors.
It allowed them to grow a relationship that is still strong today.
Quin is one of several “old heads” who showed Slay the ropes as a rookie in Detroit. And many of those same lessons are the ones he’s preparing to share with Mitchell and DeJean in 2024.
Coming for your job
After the Eagles drafted Mitchell out of Toledo with the No. 22 pick, Slay was asked a question on social media and gave a perfect response.
You can probably thank Rashean Mathis for this one.
The Lions drafted Slay in April of 2013 and a few months later, Mathis signed a one-year deal with Detroit. After 10 years playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Mathis was nearly 33 when the Lions signed him that August.
Mathis juggled many things in 2013. He wanted to prove he could still play in the NFL, he wanted to compete with Slay and his other new teammates but he also wanted to be a mentor to the youngster too.
Even though Slay began that season as a starter, he was benched a couple times that year in favor of Mathis.
“Me and Slay joke about it now,” Mathis said to NBC Sports Philadelphia this summer. “I took his starting job as an 11-year veteran. But I also told him that this is his team, it’s not my team. ‘This team is all about you. This team is yours, it’s not mine. I’m just here to fill this spot until you get your footing, until you become who you’re supposed to be because you will one day become the face of the franchise.’
“That’s me respecting the game and paying it forward. That’s how our relationship was and he ended up being my little brother.”
At that point in Mathis’s career, he realized that passing down knowledge to a rookie becomes part of your legacy. It’s the kind of perspective that can only be gained through experience. Being in the league for over a decade allows you to see the bigger picture and reflect.
So Mathis, like Quin and others, took it upon himself to help the rookie.
They competed daily but grew close off the field too. After a win over the Packers on Thanksgiving Day in 2013, Mathis and his wife invited several teammates to their home for dinner. As Mathis prepared to leave Ford Field, he got an incoming FaceTime call from Slay. The hungry rookie was already out front of his house waiting.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, we’re not even home yet, how’d you beat us there?’” Mathis recalled. “But that’s Slay. He knows no stranger. He’ll find something fun and he’ll laugh about anything.”
Mathis and Slay remain close to this day and Mathis chuckled again when acknowledging that Slay is just about the only person who still FaceTimes him.
The rookie’s role
This is not a one-sided relationship.
It doesn’t matter how wise a veteran is or how willing he is to share his information if the rookie doesn’t listen.
“His role is more important than mine,” Mathis said. “Because he has to receive what I’m giving him. If you’re not able to receive it, then regardless of how good the person is in front of you trying to give you that information, if you’re not able to receive it or have the right mindset, it defeats the purpose.”
The good news for the Eagles is both Mitchell and DeJean seem eager to soak up any and all tips they can get from Slay and the other veterans. Mitchell said some of the advice from Slay has been unsolicited and some of it has come from asking questions — a lot of questions.
This spring, Eagles defensive backs coach Christian Parker said that Mitchell “wants to be a sponge.”
As Mathis explained, rookies come into the NFL at 21 or 22 years old having been the best players on their high school and college teams and then the NFL is a different world. On top of the higher level of competition, they also have to learn how to navigate the world as a professional athlete.
So Slay will be giving the rookies advice on and off the field.
And if they are anything like Slay was 12 years ago, they’ll be listening.
“[Slay] was always willing to learn,” Quin said. “He was always willing to ask questions, admit things that he didn’t know. He wasn’t one of those guys that shied away from that. Some guys don’t like asking questions or saying what they know or don’t know. They just pretend like they know it all. He was never one of those guys. When you have guys like that, you know that they want to learn, that their ego is not too big to listen, they aren’t afraid to ask questions.”
The new Old Head
Back in 2013, Slay began calling some of his veteran teammates “old heads” as a term of endearment. Two of them couldn’t help but laugh to think that Slay is now the old head of the Eagles’ cornerback group.
“It’s funny,” Quin said. “It’s funny, man, to hear that Slay is the old head and he’s the leader of the guys. It’s funny when you see those guys grow into those roles because you remember how they came in.
“But that’s just a testament to him and the work that he’s put in, the career he’s built, the reputation he’s built, that he can go from being that young guy to being that old guy. He’s put a lot of time in, tons of accolades and different things he’s been able to do. That’s just a testament to him and his work ethic.”
As proud as Quin and Mathis are of Slay’s success in the NFL, they’re also proud of the leader he’s become. Slay fought back tears a couple years ago when he learned his teammates had voted him a captain for the first time. While he’s known for being a class clown at times, Slay’s strengths as a leader shouldn’t be overlooked.
Quin and Mathis are also honored they get mentioned among the players who had a positive influence on Slay’s early years in the NFL. Quin said that Slay was never one to withhold credit. He understood that getting help is a good thing.
“Seeing him as the older statesman in the room is funny,” Mathis said. “But to hear him pay homage to me and Glover and now he’s able to do it the right way, that’s what it’s about. Now one of those kids that he’s teaching is going to grow up and be a stud and then mention Darius. Now, he’s able to pay it forward. That’s how we stay brothers.”
Mathis said he never hesitated to help Slay. Instead, he saw it as his duty to help the rookie just like an “old head” named Donovin Darius once helped him as a rookie back in 2003.
Darius, a Camden, New Jersey native who played with Mathis in Jacksonville, was drafted in 1998 — three years before Quinyon Mitchell was born.
That’s the NFL circle of life.
And Slay isn’t fighting it. This spring, he was asked how many more years he has left in him.
“Ahh s—. Not too many,” Slay said. “I’m not going to just keep playing. I’m going to let these young guys eat. That’s what I’m here for, to make sure these guys get there. And when my time is up, it’s up.”
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