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TRS Debate Club: Philadelphia Eagles And Byron Maxwell

Here at TRS, we have writers allocated to a variety of teams. I have been lucky enough to have been given two outstanding writers to cover the Eagles with, Tom Aresco and Nick DeCesare. Tom and Nick each have their strengths and angles they like to focus on. It usually keeps things fun. That’s all great when the team you are covering is doing well. But as of late, eh…not so much. You tend to see different sides of each other when your team is 0-2. You see, we don’t just cover the Eagles; were are also passionate fans. And as both, we get heated. With three different angles we see things, well, differently. Recently, a discussion has surfaced. Did I say discussion? Bec

ause I meant to say “argument.” That argument: Byron Maxwell.

Rather than continuing to read hundreds of texts while I’m driving, I jumped on Tom’s suggestion of turning this organic argument into a full blown article. With some structure of course. I’m going to present each with a question and give the other a rebuttal. Hopefully, it will be as entertaining for all of you, as it has been for me.

 

We will start things off with the most obvious question. Tom, after watching the Eagles defense, how do you feel about Byron Maxwell?

Tom: I noticed that he struggled one-on-one during Week 1 with Julio Jones, the dynamite wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons. With that being said, the pass rush on quarterback Matt Ryan was non-existent and there was a ton of the single-high safety look that plagued the Eagles all of last season on deep passes. Maxwell was exposed, but asking a cornerback to cover receivers one-on-one for an entire game could be the most daunting task in professional sports. You don’t pay a guy $60 million and assume that the money will create new strengths. He has a specific skill set and it is the coaching staff’s job to put him in successful situations. This isn’t the first time that Billy Davis has left a cornerback on an island to falter at the hands of an elite wide receiver. Against Dallas, I saw a night-and-day improvement. Maxwell was making plays, there were safeties deep and it certainly helped the entire secondary.

Nick: George Young, a former GM for the Giants, once said “no player ever plays better because you pay him more money.” The Eagles made a mistake signing Maxwell to the contract that they signed him to. I agree with Tom in that regard. Aside from the contract itself, his play on the field leaves something to be desired. In game one he gave up 9 passes on 11 targets. One of those incompletions was a 25 yard penalty. The other was a defended pass. So Maxwell effectively gave up 90% of his targets and averaged 15 per. It wasn’t just Julio Jones he was up against. He was beat in coverage by Roddy White, Jones, Nick Williams, and Davonta Freeman. Game 2 the numbers were better, but the performance really wasn’t. In a game where the best WR on the other team didn’t play and the starting quarterback was injured to start the second half, those aren’t great numbers.

For arguments sake, let’s remove his pay grade from this. His contract was/is relative to the current market. Plus we can all agree that we knew Byron Maxwell was not #1 corner. So Nick, based on what Tom brought up regarding Bill Davis’ defensive plan, doesn’t Maxwell get a bit of a pass?

Nick: Well…yes and no. Maxwell gets no help over the top and, quite frankly, he isn’t good enough to cover his side of the field on his own. The same could have been said of Nnamdi Asomugha prior to his career ending, yet no Eagles fan makes that excuse for him anymore. In the end you’re either a good cornerback or not. Could Davis provide safety help? Sure. But if you do that, you’re creating holes elsewhere. Davis would have to change the scheme entirely to make it work.

Looking at the two options, neither is really good. In the first, you either force a linebacker to cover tight ends and slot receivers or you substitute a nickel corner in for a linebacker. The issues with that are 1) we don’t have a designated nickel corner anymore and 2) you either lose pass rush by taking an OLB off the field or run stoppage if you take an ILB off the field.

The second option leaves the entire middle of the field behind the linebackers open. Quite frankly, that isn’t an option. We don’t have Earl Thomas who is simply the only safety who can make our current scheme work. But short of completely revamping our defensive scheme mid-year, there’s nothing we can do. It boils down to the fact that Maxwell simply cannot cover 1 on 1.

Tom: Look, I’m not giving Byron Maxwell a pass. We essentially paid top dollar to a cornerback who isn’t at the top of his position. Our need for a physical, experienced cornerback was so glaring that we brought him in to fix the problem. One player doesn’t fix an entire secondary, though, and the scheme seems to ask a lot out of players who do not have those strengths. It’d be like the Chiefs asking Alex Smith to throw vertically after giving him a contract extension, as if the extension will blossom skills he doesn’t have. Maxwell may not be what we bargained for, but he has skills that can be effectively used on a defense. Every player does, and it takes a great coaching staff to pull the best performances out of the players on the roster. I’ll never forget Chip Kelly’s famous quote, “I don’t create a system and then put players in it, I build the system based on our player’s skills.” He may have said it a bit differently, but I’ve heard him harp on that idea since he got here. So, when did this idea get lost in translation? Not to mention, the Eagles’ offense has been an atrocity. The defense played for over 40 minutes in Week 2, and it was arguably the worst offensive performance in Chip Kelly’s career. The entire team is playing as poorly as they possibly can be, yet fans expect Maxwell to give up nothing because of his contract? It seems to me like the Philadelphia faithful is just a bit sensitive about the cornerback position. Maxwell is a sturdy cornerback who will bend, but won’t break as often as he did in Week 1. You just can’t expect the new cornerback to pick up the slack for the entire team’s issues.

Nick brings up a good point about Bill Davis’ system, but Tom is spot on about Maxwell taking the brunt of defensive blame. It’s understandable because of what Maxwell got to sign on, but we all agree something has to change either way. Closing statements fellas?

Nick: Byron Maxwell is Nnamdi Asomugha all over again. Except he was never as talented as Asomugha in the first place.

Tom: Byron Maxwell will be a solid starting cornerback for the Eagles. Nnamdi Asomugha was in Philadelphia for the butt-end of the Andy Reid era, and contributed as the poster boy for a cash crop of misfit free agents. I think that Kelly’s team will be on the rise, and if the defensive scheme isn’t putting players in the right position to succeed then we will see coaching enhancements.

In all honesty, I can see both sides, which is why I usually just read/listen to what these two have to say. Maxwell got paid bigtime to join the Eagles, and so that comes with a high-level of expectations. But the contract is all relative; that was the going rate at the time. If Philly didn’t give him that money, someone else would have. The Eagles really couldn’t have rolled the dice on not throwing bags of money at him. I tend to side on the side of Maxwell being a scapegoat right now. Like I said, the team needs to make a change one way or another. If not, plan on Chip Kelly trying to sell the first round pick in some crazy mess…again.

 

Author: Michael Beaudwin

Michael Beaudwin is a NFL Writer and Analyst for The Runner Sports follow him on Twitter @MichaelNerdFL

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