Eagles to Sign All-Pro Eddie Jackson? Why Philly Should Avoid the Big-Name Trap

Eddie Jackson was once a start playing for Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio with the Chicago Bears but that was a long time ago.

PHILADELPHIA - Big-name season is here and the rebuilding Chicago Bears decided to populate the free-agency pond a little more on Thursday when they moved on from a couple of organization mainstays in Cody Whitehair and Eddie Jackson.

The latter immediately sparked interest in Philadelphia because Jackson was once a playmaking stud who once excelled under Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, turning into an All-Pro by just his second NFL season back in 2018.

This league moves pretty fast, however.

Former Bears S Eddie Jackson / USA Today

Take Fangio. Since leaving Chicago to become the head coach in Denver for three seasons, Fangio had also worked as a consultant for the Eagles in the lead-up to Super Bowl LVII after the 2022 season and took over the Miami defense in 2023 as the highest-paid coordinator in NFL history before coming back to Philadelphia to take over a stop unit that desperately needs an influx of youth, speed, and athleticism.

Jackson, 30, spent that entire time with the Bears but never reached the same heights he did when he was a difference-maker in Fangio’s scheme.

Pro Football Focus graded Jackson as the top safety in the entire NFL in 2018. Since then, post-Fangio, the Alabama product has only had one season in which he was graded better than mediocre, an outlier 2022 campaign where he was No. 13 of the 88 safeties who played enough to be ranked.

The other finishes were No. 44 of 83 in 2019, coming off his All-Pro campaign without Fangio for the first time, No. 63 of 94 in 2020, No. 65 of 92 in 2021, and No. 76 of 95 last season, making it easy for Chicago to move on.

The Bears saved $21.7 million in cap space by moving on from Jackson and Whitehair, who was also once a Pro Bowl player.

From the Eagles' standpoint, the organization needs help at safety but even if you default to Jackson playing better with Fangio’s stewardship, expecting a 30-year-old player to halt a pretty significant decline late in his career is a stretch.

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Maybe Jackson serves as a better-fitted Band-Aid than veteran trade pickup Kevin Byard, a former two-time All-Pro himself, but the best-case scenario is that being a short-term lift.

The Eagles’ goal should be finding a longer-term answer on the back end. That’s somewhat complicated by Sydney Brown’s late-season torn ACL but any early swings at the position should have that in mind.

Targeting Jackson should only serve as a contingency explored if the more common-sense avenues are closed for Howie Roseman.