Why Eagles thought Quinyon Mitchell could play nickel corner

The Eagles didn’t know if Quinyon Mitchell would be able to play nickel corner.

How could they?

“Because he only played one position and one defense his whole college career, (we) didn’t really know what his football acumen would be, the overall aptitude that he can reach,” defensive backs coach Christian Parker said on Sunday. 

“But we kind of noticed that he could handle a lot in a short amount of time and we decided this is something we want to explore.”

The Eagles drafted Mitchell with the No. 22 pick out of Toledo in April, making him the first cornerback off the board. They drafted him to be an outside corner. They drafted him to eventually become the CB1 for what they hope will be a long career.

But the Eagles suddenly have good depth at corner. 

Darius Slay is back for his 12th NFL season and hasn’t slowed down, while Isaiah Rodgers and Kelee Ringo are having a spirited battle for the other outside corner job.

So the Eagles had to get creative to find a role for Mitchell. 

And in recent weeks, he’s been the top option at the slot cornerback position with the first-team defense. He has taken over that role from incumbent Avonte Maddox, who has mostly been playing safety recently. Despite his relative inexperience playing inside, Mitchell has looked natural, often facing off against DeVonta Smith when the star receiver plays in the slot.

The Eagles weren’t sure that Mitchell would be able to play the nickel but they suspected he could based on what they saw from him this spring.

What did the Eagles see from Mitchell in OTAs to make them think that?

“Just overall football awareness,” Parker said. “Whenever you see guys that have good spacial awareness, splits, and an awareness of things around them from an offensive and defensive perspective, you try them in there and see if it works. And it has. So kind of had that thought in the spring and then went full-throttle with it in training camp and it’s been good.”

With less than three weeks before the season opener, it is very obvious that Mitchell has, at the very least, locked up the nickel job. But there’s also a chance he could be a starter outside on base downs and bump inside in sub packages. Either way, the rookie is going to have a major role in Vic Fangio’s defense in 2024.

Fangio has said playing Mitchell inside was just about getting their best combination on the field.

“You know, we do like Quinyon,” Fangio said. “Like I told you last time, we got a lot on his plate. In a perfect world he could play corner and corner only, but we got to have a nickel.

“The nickel is going to be out on the field by today's standards 70-85% of the time. It's an important position, and whatever our best combination is, is what we'll go with.”

Over the previous three seasons, there have been 12 cornerbacks taken in the first round and seven of them have started at least 10 games as a rookie: Patrick Surtain, Greg Newsome, Eric Stokes, Sauce Gardner, Trent McDuffie, Devon Witherspoon, Deonte Banks. A few others — Jaycee Horn, Derek Stingley and Christian Gonzalez — were on their way to starting double digit games before injuries hit.

But the point remains. Even though cornerback has historically been a position where players needed more time to acclimate to the NFL, that hasn’t really been the case recently.

If Mitchell looks ready to play, there’s no reason to hold him back. And the Eagles are getting him ready to play an awful lot in his rookie season.

The Eagles began training camp with Mitchell taking reps with the second-team defense but eventually started working him in with the first team. Recently, he has been taking all the nickel reps with the ones and then playing some outside cornerback with the twos and sometimes even with the starters.

Through 14 practices and two games, Mitchell has been as advertised at both positions.

“I wouldn’t say it’s hard for me,” Mitchell said. “You just gotta separate the two, just know what you’re doing and stuff like that. I don’t feel like it’s that hard.”

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