With the plethora of moves Howie Roseman had made this offseason, the one position he neglected was safety. Until Friday.
Late Friday evening, the Eagles signed veteran safety Jaquiski Tartt to a one-year deal. The details of the contract have yet to be released.
There are a few factors to breakdown with this signing. First, Tartt should come in and start right away at free safety, which will allow Marcus Epps to play the box safety role; something he’s done very well over the past two years. Of the 727 defensive snaps Tartt played in 2021, 431 of them came from the free safety position.
Tartt spent some time playing in the box as well, but he’s much more comfortable playing over the top. He’s a pure coverage safety and has been a reliable presence for the 49ers’ secondary over the past few seasons. Since 2019, Tartt has allowed a completion percentage of just 57.5 when targeted — the third lowest completion rate among safeties during that time.
Getting one of the big name safeties on the market this offseason would have been nice, but Tartt is a nice consolation prize. At 30 years old, he’s a little past his prime, but he can still take on a heavy workload and have success, as evidenced with his play last season in San Francisco.
There was some hope among the fanbase — including myself — that Howie would make one more blockbuster move this offseason and acquire Bengals safety Jessie Bates. This signing squashes any hope of that, but pushing for Bates at this stage of the offseason may have been a bit greedy.
Nevertheless, Tartt adequately fills the last question mark remaining on Jonathan Gannon’s defense. The team didn’t have a true free safety on their roster to replace Rodney McLeod. Tartt gives them that.
Head over to foco.com to get your hands on some fresh Eagles gear for the summer. From limited time bobbleheads, to sleek apparel for every major Philly sports team, FOCO has a wide selection of items to fit anyone’s taste. Use promo code FULLSCALE15 at check out to get 15% off all in stock items!
3 comments