Inside the Eagles’ locker room: Sydney Brown to reunite with Devon Witherspoon; fake punt perfection

The Eagles’ trip to Seattle will give Sydney Brown and Devon Witherspoon a chance to take in both a reunion and an anniversary together.

The two former Illinois defensive backs, Witherspoon with the Seahawks and Brown with the Eagles, shared a secondary for four seasons and declared for the NFL draft on the same day almost exactly a year ago from Monday night’s matchup between their new teams.

Brown said the two developed a strong relationship as star players patrolling the back end of the Illini defense. Both players developed a reputation for playing with an edge and delivering hard hits, but their off-field personalities were polar opposites, Brown said.

“Oh my God, we were super tight,” Brown said. “I think we were so close because we were very opposite. Devon was loud all the time; I’m pretty reserved and analytic about some of the stuff I do.”

“That man is a wildfire,” Brown added. “He’s just a ray of energy. I absolutely love the guy. He’s a special player because of the mentality he has, and he’s just a true competitor in everything he does. He’s going to be a really good player in this league for a long time because of his work ethic and his mindset and how he approaches each day as a player.”

Witherspoon is off to a promising start in Seattle after going No. 5 overall in April’s NFL draft. Playing primarily as a slot cornerback in a talented Seattle secondary, he’s started all 12 games for the Seahawks and has one interception, three sacks, and 65 total tackles. He is questionable to play on Monday because of a hip injury.

Despite playing mostly as an outside corner in college, Witherspoon has been one of the best nickel cornerbacks in coverage, allowing just 20 catches in 255 coverage snaps from the slot, according to Pro Football Focus. He’s also made a handful of big hits, something that hasn’t come as a surprise to Brown.

“We were violent,” Brown said. “We were a very physical defense. I think we were both catalysts of that based off what we did. I wish I could still be playing with him, it’d be cool to have him here. ... I miss that guy a lot.”

Brown, who has earned a situational role in the Eagles’ defense as a slot cornerback on early downs this season, said the two plan to swap jerseys after the game. It will be a fitting way, Brown said, to mark the one-year anniversary of their mutual decision to pursue the NFL.

“It’s going to be so cool,” he said. “We left together, and then it’s going [to be] kind of like a full-circle moment of us reunited.”

Punter Braden Mann is a man of many athletic talents, which are not limited to launching footballs off of his feet.

According to wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus, Mann is a gifted golfer who works on his skills on the putting green located at the entrance of the Eagles locker room in the NovaCare Complex. Evidently, Mann can throw the football, too — in the second quarter of last week’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys, he helped execute a fake punt on fourth-and-2, tossing a completion to Zaccheaus for a 28-yard gain.

“During practice, it’s like, he started throwing the ball a little bit. I said, ‘Oh, OK. Yeah. It’s got some zip behind it,’ ” Zaccheaus said. “It was pretty accurate, too. And then I was like, ‘Yeah he’s a pretty good athlete.’ ”

The fake punt had been in the works before the Eagles’ first showdown against the Cowboys in Week 9. As special teams coordinator Michael Clay, special teams assistant Tyler Brown, and assistant special teams coordinator Joe Pannunzio were preparing for that contest, they saw a look on film from Dallas’ punt return unit that they thought they could run the fake against, but it never materialized in the game.

When they were presented with that look after the offense failed to convert on third down in Week 14, Clay got the green light to run the play. Zaccheaus does not typically serve as a gunner, but he was on punt coverage in the Los Angeles Rams game in Week 5, so his presence apparently wasn’t unusual enough to tip Dallas off to the fake. Still, the clandestine Zaccheaus tried to sneak onto the field so the Eagles could get the play off quickly.

“[DeVonta Smith] was actually a little banged up on the [previous] play,” Zaccheaus said. “So he was walking off the field. And I was kind of like, ‘Hurry up, Smitty. Hurry up.’ But there’s a little bit of like that, too. Obviously, I didn’t want to be on their sideline. I wanted to be on our sideline just so I was a little bit more discreet.”

This wasn’t Mann’s first crack at a fake punt. He said he ran nearly the exact same play last season with the New York Jets in their Week 2 game against the Cleveland Browns. On fourth-and-2 near the end of the first quarter, Mann ripped a 17-yard completion to receiver Jeff Smith. Mann said he thought the fact that he had been in a similar situation before running a nearly identical play gave Clay the confidence to call the fake against the Cowboys.

The drive didn’t have the ending that the Eagles offense would’ve wanted, as they stalled outside of the red zone shortly after the fourth-down conversion and called upon kicker Jake Elliott to make a 52-yard field goal. But the successful fake punt is another feather in the cap for Clay and the special teams unit, which is ranked No. 14 in the league by Pro Football Focus, a substantial bump over their No. 30 placement at the end of the 2022 regular season.

“I think Coach Clay has an awesome job bringing the juice to the guys,” Mann said. “And the guys have done an incredible job throughout every phase, just kind of trying to be a bit of a spark and getting a little bit of juice on the sidelines. I’m sure that’s part of the reason that we ended up running that fake, ‘cause we’re kind of there to provide big plays when we can and also be a little bit of stability when we can.”