Eagles land two players on ESPN’s top-10 cornerback rankings, a sentence we used to pray for

The Eagles put two cornerbacks in ESPN’s top-10 rankings this week, Quinyon Mitchell at No. 6 and Cooper DeJean at No. 10, and I need everyone to pause and appreciate how insane that sentence would have sounded five years ago.

ESPN polled more than 70 executives, coaches, and scouts for these rankings. The people who get paid to know. And two of the ten names they landed on play in midnight green.

We used to pray for one competent corner. One. Now we have a surplus.

The Eagles cornerback room used to be a haunted house

Think about the Eagles lineage here. This franchise spent two decades treating cornerback like a position you address with duct tape and a prayer. The Eagles went 22 years without drafting a corner in the first round before taking Mitchell 22nd overall in 2024.

Then Howie Roseman took Mitchell and DeJean in the same draft, and two years later they’re both first-team All-Pros, the first Eagles corners to earn that since Lito Sheppard in 2004.

One draft class fixed a 20-year problem. Beautiful.

What the league is saying about Mitchell and DeJean

Mitchell came in at No. 6, up from ninth last year, and Fowler flat out says it’s only a matter of time before he cracks the top three. The numbers back it up. He allowed 4.8 yards per target last season, third best among 87 defensive backs targeted 50 or more times. He gave up 1.8 yards after the catch per reception, the fewest of any corner in football. Receivers catch the ball against him and immediately get tackled. That’s the whole highlight reel.

The one knock, per an AFC executive: no interceptions. Fair. He has zero in his career, at least in the regular season. He’ll get one eventually, and when he does, the ranking argument dies on the spot. Slay already has him at No. 4 on his own list, for whatever a mentor’s bias is worth.

DeJean’s case is even funnier because ESPN’s voters spent the whole process arguing about what position he plays. Corner? Safety? Doesn’t matter. He led every slot corner in the league in catch rate allowed, passer rating allowed, and yards per coverage snap. He hasn’t allowed a single touchdown from the slot in two seasons. One NFC coach called him a Swiss Army knife who “ain’t shying away from nothing.”

He’s 23.

And buried in the fine print: Riq Woolen, now an Eagle, also picked up top-10 votes. So the third corner in this room got votes for a list the franchise couldn’t sniff for two decades.

Enjoy this, because it never used to be like this

There’s no hot take here. No outrage. Just a fact worth sitting with: the Eagles have the best young cornerback duo in football, both on rookie deals, both drafted by the same front office everyone wanted fired at various points.

The secondary used to be the reason we lost. Now it’s the reason Vic Fangio can do whatever he wants.

Sheppard to Mitchell was a 20-year drought. Let’s not act normal about the rain.