Related Story: The Philadelphia Eagles are underdogs and that is perfectly okayĪfter losing their Week 2 game to the Kansas City Chiefs by a score of 27-20, the Eagles went on an absolute tear, winning their next nine games by a combined score of 301- 147, and much of that success could be directly attributed to Mills ability to keep up with opposing team’s number one receivers. But fortunately for the team, the moment was not too big for the former seventh-round pick. But after only one half of play, Mills was once again thrust into the spotlight after Darby suffered a particularly gruesome ankle injury in the Eagles’ Week 1 victory over the Washington Redskins. One week into the team’s preseason slate, Howie Roseman saw an opportunity to seriously improve the team’s secondary and ultimately swapped out Jordan Matthews, and their 2017 third round pick for diminutive cover man Ronald Darby, a legitimate starting caliber cornerback.
BIG HEAD BASKETBALL MILLS EAGLES PRO
Going into 2017, the Eagles went out of their way to bolster their secondary by adding four defensive backs, but there’s no way the team would continue to start Pro Football Focus‘ lowest graded cornerback of 2016 in 2017, right?Īfter initially splitting time on the outside and slot with free agent acquisition Patrick Robinson, Mills was named the team’s starting outside cornerback alongside Robinson and rookie third-round pick Rasul Douglas to start the preseason.īut unfortunately for Mills, his position as the team’s top cornerback didn’t last very long. Related Story: Philadelphia Eagles will host Minnesota Vikings in NFC Championship
While the performance wasn’t particularly impressive from a statistical standpoint, it showed that Mills had guts and could one day fill the role of a lockdown cornerback. Though Jones did get his, finishing the game with 10 catches for 135 yards, he was held out of the end zone in large part thanks to Mills expert coverage skills and was a major reason why the Falcons ended up losing to the Eagles by a score of 24-15, their fourth loss of the season. With the team’s secondary hit hard by a string of injuries, and Mills the only healthy corner left on the active roster, the then-rookie cornerback explicitly asked Schwartz to go one-on-one against Julio Jones for the entire second half of the game. While playing in arguably the worst secondary in the entire league, Mills found his way onto the field by splitting reps with then starters Nolan Carroll and Leodis McKelvin, a pair of players who aren’t even in the league anymore, and quickly made it hard for Jim Schwartz to take him off the field.Īnd it all came to a head in Week 10, when the Eagles faced off against the eventual NFC Champions, the Atlanta Falcons.
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