May 23, 2026
On Thursday, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio revealed that All-Pro cornerback Cooper DeJean would be playing safety in the team's base defense in 2026. Here we'll break down what that means for the Eagles' secondary as a whole.
To begin, we should note that the Eagles are in their "base defense" on less than 20 percent of their defensive snaps. The base D looks like this presently:
In case you're unfamiliar with some of the new guys' numbers, a key:
• 98 iDL Jalen Carter
• 90 NT Jordan Davis
• 97 iDL Moro Ojomo
• 58 EDGE Jalyx Hunt
• 30 LB Jihaad Campbell
• 53 LB Zack Baun
• 52 EDGE Jonathan Greenard
• 27 CB Quinyon Mitchell
• 33 S Cooper DeJean
• 24 S Andrew Mukuba
• 2 CB Riq Woolen
Last year when the Eagles were in base, DeJean played outside corner (where Woolen is above), with Mukuba and Reed Blankenship at safety. Blankenship is gone. Mukuba will start at one safety spot, and likely won't come off the field as long as he's healthy.
"As you guys know, last year, his season... first off, his training camp was interrupted by a couple injuries that kept him out for two different lumps of time," Fangio said of Mukuba. "Started off the season up and down, had some shaky plays. But I felt like the last five or six games prior to him getting hurt, he was coming on and hopefully he'll be able to pick up from there. He's had a rehab-dominated offseason, but he's been out there with us these last couple of weeks. He's not 100% yet, but he will be soon."
In nickel, by far the Eagles' most common personnel package, DeJean would move into the slot, and an interior defensive lineman would typically come off the field. Here's what the Eagles' nickel package would look like if the season started today. (Epps is No. 29 now.)
OK, so now that we've gotten the basics out of the way, let's look at the takeaways from this announcement. And, spoiler, I'm not quite as sold on this as a positive development as the fanbase seems to be.
Back in March around free agency, I was asked in a mailbag post whether DeJean should move to safety. I was down on that idea, with the following explanation:
Maybe there's a scenario where Riq Woolen turns out to be a great player, and the Eagles conclude that it would be nuts for him to come off the field. In that scenario, it would make sense to me to play Woolen and Mitchell at corner in base, with DeJean and Andrew Mukuba at safety. And then DeJean would play in the slot in nickel and Marcus Epps or Michael Carter or some other safety to be determined comes in and plays safety.
Woolen hasn't proven yet that he should stay on the field for every snap. Maybe that'll change. We'll see. I believe that the easiest solution is to just go find a safety that you like instead of moving an All-Pro corner to a much less important position, even if only for the 15 percent or so of the defensive snaps that they're in base.
Woolen was a Seahawks fifth-round pick in 2022 who started immediately as a rookie, finishing third in Defensive Rookie of the Year honors, when he had 63 tackles, 6 INTs, 16 pass breakups, and 3 fumble recoveries. He also made the Pro Bowl as a rookie.
However, he was unable to sustain that level of play, and he struggled in 2025, even losing playing time while being floated on the trade block for the better part of the season. The Seahawks determined that former undrafted Eagles CB Josh Jobe was the better player of the two, as Jobe started opposite Devon Witherspoon.
Fangio's comments on Thursday made clear that he is very high on Woolen.
"I'm excited to have him," Fangio said. "We looked at him during the middle of the season last year a little bit because [the Seahawks] may have been interested in trading him, and we didn't decide to do it and I didn't get too involved in the evaluation. But then when it came free agency time this year and I actually sat down and watched him thoroughly, I was excited for him and kind of surprised that he was one of those guys that didn't get a lot of action for a long-term deal. I was thrilled to get him. I think he's going to play [well] for us.
"He's a rare guy in that you don't see many corners in the league that are 6'4". You don't see many that are 6'2" or even 6'1" and there's a reason for that. It's hard to find guys at those heights that can move and mirror receivers that are hard to cover. He can do that for a guy his height. He can get in and out of breaks. He obviously has good downfield speed and his length is more of an asset than a detriment in his case. I'm excited to have him. He's been here since we started the offseason. Seems to be a great guy. He's into being here and really looking forward to working with him."
As Fangio noted, Woolen is a size-speed freak of nature. He's 6'4 with 34" arms, and he ran a 4.26 40 at the Combine. This is an all-timer spider chart:
The Eagles (and Fangio) are clearly betting that Woolen will fit into Fangio's defense better than he did in Seattle's.
However, it's worth noting that it's not as if the Seahawks are some some dumpy, incompetent organization with a bad coaching staff. Their defense dominated in the playoffs last season on their way to a Super Bowl. It's not like when the Eagles signed Saquon Barkley away from a trash team with a terrible O-line and it was obvious he'd be in a better situation in Philly.
So, we'll see.
DeJean is pretty clearly the best slot corner in the NFL. And, well, he was named First-Team All Pro at slot corner in 2025.
He is also an incredibly versatile player, who can play like four different positions on defense, and return punts. Hell, he's even the backup holder on the field goal team. There's little doubt that he could play well at safety.
But there was a game in Dallas against the Cowboys last season in which Adoree' Jackson got hurt, and DeJean moved outside full-time, with Michael Carter coming off the bench and playing in the slot. Instead of attacking Carter the Cowboys went after DeJean quite a bit with deep throws down the field to CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, and were successful. That was interesting.
"It's open," Fangio said. "I think Marcus is someone that will put a good claim to it...
"When we go to nickel and Coop comes up and plays nickel, it'll be Epps. We're taking a good look at Michael Carter back there. Andre Sam. Then we signed an undrafted free agent, Gush [DB Kapena Gushiken]. J.T. Gray has been mainly a special teams player, but he'll get a look. We'll look at all those guys. It's an open competition."
Fangio also spoke a little more at length about Epps' play in 2025.
"I was pleasantly surprised," he said. "Maybe surprised is the wrong word because I just really didn't know him. But when he had to play last year, he came in and showed his experience, showed his instincts that he has for the game. I was pleased with the way he played last year. I wasn't considering him an old player at this point, but he's obviously a veteran. I think he'll do fine. I'm not sure what his injury history has been, but I think if he stays injury-free and if he wins the job, we'll be fine."
Carter, normally a slot corner, played a little safety for the Eagles in 2025.
"He's an instinctive player," Fangio said of Carter. "I think he has a good feel for the game. What little he did play for us last year, he did show that. I don't think he'll have a hard time learning the position mentally. He's just got to go out there and be able to do it. What we've been doing out there these last couple of weeks are just kind of walkthroughs and route pickups against other defensive players running the routes or even non-players. I think we'll know early whether he's got the feel for it or not."
Side note: Fangio did not include seventh-round rookie Cole Wisniewski among the players he mentioned. Perhaps that was merely an oversight, or maybe Wisniewski will play more of a linebacker role, which he did earlier in his college career.
Side note No. 2: The undrafted rookie Fangio mentioned, Kapena Gushiken, already has a nickname ("Gush"). That's huge for his brand.
Aside from re-signing Epps, the Eagles didn't add a starting-caliber safety in free agency, and they didn't use an early draft pick on a safety. They did add other guys like J.T. Gray (FA) and Cole Wisniewski (7th round draft pick).
At a minimum, Epps is a solid backup at this stage of his career. He knows where he needs to be, and he has Fangio's trust, as noted above.
However, he isn't going to provide much in the way of splash plays. He hasn't had an INT since 2021, and in seven NFL seasons, he has just 3 career INTs and 2 forced fumbles.
Epps could certainly be "fine," but "fine" is also probably his ceiling.
My assumption was that the Eagles would trade for a starting-caliber safety sometime after June 1. However, after hearing Fangio's plans to move DeJean to safety in base along with his praise for Epps, it's probably a better bet that if the Eagles trade for a safety it'll be during training camp if/when they aren't fully sold on what they're seeing at that position as a whole.
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