Reed Blankenship named Eagles’ most underappreciated player

Entering the 2024 offseason, the Philadelphia Eagles strategy was clear — fix the secondary. The majority of their moves focused on just that. From signing CJ Gardner-Johnson, to drafting two defensive backs with their first and second-round selections, Howie Roseman made a concerted effort to add playmakers to his defensive backfield.

Looking ahead, it appears the Eagles will have a least two, maybe three, new starters in their secondary this season. One player who may end up losing his starting job is S Reed Blankenship. Despite being one of the better players on the Eagles defense last season and signing a contract extension this offseason, his starting spot doesn’t feel guaranteed.

But, maybe that’s on us. Maybe fans are just anxious to completely overhaul what they saw last year and start anew. After all, what we saw out of the Eagles secondary last year was quite horrendous.

NFL.com‘s Matt Blair recently wrote a piece outlining every team’s most underappreciated player. For the Eagles, he picked Reed Blankenship.

Why Reed Blankenship may be the Eagles most underappreciated player

How’s this for being underappreciated? You sign a contract extension, and a local media outlet responds with a write-up about how you could still lose your job as a starter this season. That’s not an outlandish proposition. Though Blankenship led the Eagles in tackles (108), finished third on the team in passes defensed (11) and was the fifth-best defensive-graded player in Philly, per PFF, he was also credited with allowing six touchdowns as the nearest defender last season, tied for ninth-most in the NFL, according to NGS.

I’m not here to wallow in Blankenship’s shortcomings, however. What I really want is to call out two facts: 1) Blankenship made bank in performance-based pay last season, and 2) He logged an astounding 116 snaps in Week 12 against the Bills, which is the most in a game since 2012. Being able to handle an extraordinary workload on one late-November day obviously isn’t everything, but it is something. Whatever direction Blankenship’s career takes going forward, his promising 2023 makes me comfortable listing him here at this moment.

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It’s easy to lose sight of how solid Blankenship was last season with how it all ended. When the dust settles and the team is ready for Week 1, I’d be pretty surprised if Blankenship wasn’t in the starting lineup.

He may not see the same amount of snaps he saw last year with guys like Sydney Brown and Cooper DeJean behind him, but at the very least, he serves as a stabilizing force in an unstable secondary.

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