Nick Sirianni spoke to the media at the annual owners’ meetings in Phoenix on Tuesday and was asked about second-year safety Reed Blankenship and his possible role in 2023.
PHOENIX — Nick Sirianni said the Eagles knew pretty quickly last summer that they might have something in Reed Blankenship.
And then Blankenship proved them right.
The undrafted rookie from Middle Tennessee State played a bunch of snaps and even started four games for the 2022 Eagles. And his emergence is part of the reason there doesn’t seem to be much panic after the Eagles lost both of their starting safeties in free agency.
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“I think Reed did a nice job last year of playing a lot of meaningful plays and starting games last year,” Sirianni said at the NFL owners meetings on Tuesday morning. “So no doubt do we have confidence in him. We have confidence in him on a 16-4 team last year to start games. We have a lot of confidence that he can do the same thing this year.”
The Eagles made an attempt to bring back C.J. Gardner-Johnson in free agency but ultimately he ended up in Detroit on a one-year deal. And Marcus Epps signed with the Raiders before that.
Those losses left the Eagles pretty light at safety but it’s possible that they always viewed Blankenship as a potential starter in 2023.
Blankenship, 24, first got extended reps on defense last year when Gardner-Johnson missed time. But then when Avonte Maddox was out, the Eagles preferred to use Gardner-Johnson at nickel because they felt comfortable with Blankenship on the field at safety. That was the first signal the the Eagles liked Blankenship a lot.
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Because when the Eagles signed Blankenship after the draft and gave him a contract with just $55,000 in guaranteed money, the move was mostly an afterthought.
Sure, Blankenship was a five-year starter for the Blue Raiders and tallied an incredible 419 tackles in his college career. But not many folks thought that would translate into a promising NFL career.
But then came training camp and Blankenship began to stand out.
“That was the one thing with Reed that you noticed right away, that he was shining when the pads came on in training camp practices that you knew you had to keep him around because you knew he could be really good,” Sirianni said. “(Jonathan) Gannon and Dennard (Wilson) and D.K. (McDonald), they would always talk about, ‘Hey this guy is gonna be good, he’s gonna be good.’ And he played well when he was in last year.”
Even if Blankenship is penciled in as a starter this year, the Eagles still don’t have a ton of depth at safety. They signed Terrell Edmunds and Justin Evans to low-risk free agent contracts and bring back K’Von Wallace and Andre Chachere from last year’s team.
If the season began today, it seems likely that Edmunds and Blankenship would be the starters. But Sirianni also pointed out that the Eagles didn’t acquire Gardner-Johnson in a trade until just before the beginning of the season.
His point was that there’s always the potential to add.
“As far as the depth at the safety position, it’s coming together,” he said. “But you’re never a finished product.”
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