Cooper DeJean is learning safety when the Eagles are in base. In other packages, competition is wide open.
DeJean in training camp has found himself at safety alongside friend and podcast partner Reed Blankenship.
From Exciting Whites to Exciting Mics to a new safety tandem?
Fast friends Reed Blankenship and Cooper DeJean have found themselves playing the same position early in training camp as Vic Fangio and the Eagles are trying DeJean at safety in their base defense package (with four defensive backs on the field).
Fangio mentioned safety as a possibility for DeJean as the team neared the end of its offseason program in June. DeJean also got some work at outside corner in base during OTAs. DeJean, of course, primarily played nickel during his breakout rookie season.
The goal here is rather obvious: The Eagles know DeJean is too valuable to have him off the field when they’re in their base package.
“The primary motive is we’d like to have him be part of our base package,” Fangio said Thursday morning. “I do believe he can play safety. It’s new for him, so we’re going to give him some work there. Then you’ll see days in the base where he will play some corner. It’s going to be an evolution, and a lot of it will depend upon how well we do at those positions with the other guys.”
The other factor is that the Eagles rarely are in their base package. When Fangio was talking about DeJean seeing work at safety in June, he mentioned that the Eagles played 160 base snaps in 2024. For some perspective, the Eagles had more than 1,300 defensive snaps in their 21 games, meaning they used their base package around 12% of the time.
DeJean said Thursday after practice that he doesn’t have a preference on where he plays, but he wants to stay on the field when the Eagles go to base, and he’s trusting the coaching staff to sort it all out. It’s early in camp, and there are a lot of moving parts.
“It’s a different perspective back there,” DeJean said. “I’m still kind of getting used to being back there and playing that position. There are some similarities from nickel and safety, but right now, I’m still learning the position, trying to get comfortable out there.
“It’s a little tough, but you just got to be able to understand the defense. The only difference is making the calls and coming down and fitting from a different spot on the field.”
Blankenship said he told his “best friend” and podcast partner that safety is the last line of defense and requires being a bit more vocal.
“It allows you to be a little bit smarter player because you know what I’m going to do as a safety, what he’s going to do, and it also translates to nickel and corner,” Blankenship said when asked how the safety reps could help DeJean. “The more spots you know on the defense, the better.
“He’s one of the great athletes we got on our team, and Vic’s going to move him around here and there. The more you can do, the better. Obviously, whoever is lined up next to me, we’re going to try to do the best we can.”
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Given that the Eagles play base so infrequently, DeJean cross-training at safety early in camp has somewhat overshadowed how open the competition is next to Blankenship in the rest of the packages the Eagles will deploy at a much higher rate than base.
On Wednesday, the Eagles gave Sydney Brown the first look at first-team safety. On Thursday, it was rookie Andrew Mukuba. Tristin McCollum has also seen first-team reps.
Fangio said projecting who will fill the few open spots on the defense right now would be “just a guess,” and he hopes there will be plenty of practice times and reps to shake it all out. As he said, how other positions shake out will impact how DeJean’s situation plays out. Perhaps a standout emerges at safety, and the Eagles opt to have DeJean at outside corner in base. There’s ample time for it to sort out.
As for DeJean, a new year has come, for now, with a new position, and even a new nickname. A.J. Brown said Wednesday that he calls DeJean “APC: All-Pro Coop.”
“It gives me something to strive and to work for,” DeJean said. “We talked about that during OTAs. He’s going to be one that pushes me every single day to make sure that I’m playing at a high level no matter the day, to work toward that, which is pretty cool coming from a guy who has been All-Pro multiple times.
“I thought he was crazy, but when he explained it to me, he’s trying to speak it into existence for me.”
DeJean and Blankenship’s latest Exciting Mics podcast episode went live Thursday morning. Asked if they would continue taping and releasing episodes during the season, DeJean said “we’ll see.”
“There’s an off day every single week where we get off, but we’ll see if we continue it or not,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t want it to get in the way of football and what we do on the field.”
Perhaps the next episode can be taped as the pair prowls the back line of the Eagles defense.