Defensive back Quinyon Mitchell can be the Eagles’ version of Darrelle Revis

Quinyon Mitchell did not make a play in Super Bowl LIX that was as spectacular as the game-changing interception touchdown by his fellow rookie Cooper DeJean. No, Mitchell was simply the same shutdown corner he had been all season. He made three tackles and didn’t defend a single pass, in part because Patrick Mahomes didn’t have time to throw one in his direction, in part because he was pretty much flawless in his coverage assignments.

On the Chiefs’ second possession, for instance, Mitchell stayed with speedster Xavier Worthy on a go route, forcing Mahomes to check the ball down to another receiver. The sequence was par for the course for him; Mitchell, according to Pro Football Focus, didn’t give up a touchdown catch until Week 16, and the 67.4 passer rating he allowed was the sixth-best in the NFL out of 97 eligible cornerbacks.

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How did he do it?

He has short legs.

Think about it. The longer a cornerback’s legs are, the harder it is for him to cut, to change direction quickly, to move in all the ways that allow him to stay with a shifty receiver. You don’t want a deer playing on the outside. You want a jackrabbit.

“He definitely has that body type, a longer torso,” Eagles defensive backs coach Christian Parker said. “Anytime you have guys who are low-cut, their center of gravity is low, and they’re not as leggy in terms of their movements. We saw that when we were looking at him at the combine. His transition to explosiveness out of breaks is very efficient. It does help.”

Parker spent two years as a quality-control coach with the Packers under Doylestown native Mike Pettine, who was Green Bay’s defensive coordinator then. When he and Rex Ryan were running the Jets’ defense from 2009 through 2012, Pettine had the luxury of lining up Hall of Fame cornerback Darrelle Revis against an opposing team’s best receiver every week. Mitchell, Parker said, can reach Revis’ level.

“I watched a lot of that film,” Parker said. “He’s not there yet, but I think he has a great chance to be. The mental part of it — he wants to be in those situations, and we do it already by the nature of our defense. We trust those guys outside. We don’t have to protect them a whole lot, and we don’t. He embraces that.

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“You’d look at that Jets film, and it would be like a team meeting on this side of the hash, and Revis on the other side of the hash. We’ll get to that point.”