It’s starting to seem like all of the speculation surrounding Dallas Cowboys star corner Byron Jones and our Philadelphia Eagles may be true after all.
With free agency just over two weeks away, more rumors surrounding some of the top tier free-agents-to-be are starting to surface. On his podcast Inside the Birds, NFL insider Adam Caplan stated that the Eagles will be “all-in” on Cowboys corner Byron Jones.
“They’re going to be the first team up when they’re allowed to talk to the agents. The term is, they’ll be all-in, whatever you want to call it,” Caplan on Inside the Birds.
Analysts have suggested Jones would be on the Eagles’ radar for weeks now. Signing Jones just makes too much sense for Howie Roseman and his front office.
It fills a huge need in their secondary, he’s only 27-year-old and has prime years ahead of him. Not to mention, snagging a guy like Jones aligns perfectly with Roseman’s strategy this offseason: sign younger impact players to larger contracts and allow them to grow with the team.
Jones is the consensus no. 1 corner in this year’s free agency pool. According to Pro Football Focus, Jones was fourth in yards allowed per coverage snap, giving up only 0.62 yards on his snaps when he was on coverage. Compare that to the Eagles no. 1 corner from 2019, Ronald Darby, and it’s a night and day difference. Darby ranked dead last among corners who played at least 300 snaps in coverage, allowing 2.02 yards per coverage snap.
Caplan went on to say Jones will likely demand an average salary of about $17 million, which should be very doable for the Eagles with their $44 million in cap space.
The Eagles may not have a great track record of signing former Cowboys or corners in general, but Jones has proven he can excel in a system similar to Jim Schwartz’s, which is something we can’t say about some of our high-end misses in free agency like Nnamdi Asomugha or Byron Maxwell.
Jones would be a homerun signing for the Birds. We’ll just have to wait and see if Howie can pull it off once free agency rolls around.
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