The Eagles Found Something in Riq Woolen — And Camp Hasn’t Even Started

PHILADELPHIA — Six days out from the first practice, and the name buzzing through the Jefferson Health Training Complex isn’t Jalen Hurts. It’s a 6-foot-4 cornerback who came here from Seattle with something to prove.

Riq Woolen has spent this offseason making the kind of impression that gets coaches talking before the pads even come on. Nick Sirianni doesn’t hand out praise casually — not to a guy who hasn’t taken a real snap in midnight green yet. But Sirianni went out of his way this month to say Woolen isn’t just flashing the occasional highlight. He’s being consistent. “Wow” plays, the coach called them, and then he said the word that actually matters in July: consistent.

The position that keeps us up at night

If you grew up around here, you know why that lands. Corner has been the position that keeps South Jersey fans up at night. We’ve watched too many Sundays where a big, physical receiver got single coverage and the whole defense held its breath. A 210-pound corner with legitimate track speed and the length to erase a passing lane changes that math. Woolen is the rare athlete who can run stride-for-stride with a burner and still body up in the red zone. On paper, he’s exactly what this secondary has been missing.

The Eagles think they found him for cheap, on a bet — the way the good ones sometimes come.Samuel Banks

The catch, because there’s always a catch

The catch is that offseason buzz is a currency that spends fast and means nothing come September. We’ve seen the training-camp legend flame out under the lights before. Woolen has the tools. Whether he has the discipline to play the technique Sirianni’s staff demands, week after week, against the best receivers in the league, is a question no July practice can answer.

A defense being asked to carry more

But here’s what I keep coming back to. This is a defense being asked to carry more weight than usual. The offense is installing a new system under coordinator Sean Mannion, and Hurts is learning to operate without A.J. Brown, who’s now catching passes in New England. There’s going to be a stretch this season — maybe September, maybe deeper — where the offense sputters while it finds itself, and the defense has to win a game on its own. When that day comes, they’ll need a corner who can travel with the other team’s best guy and take him out of the plan.

The Eagles think that guy might already be on the roster. Camp opens July 29. The players report the day before, and by that first padded practice, the “wow” plays stop being enough. Woolen will line up across from Philadelphia’s own receivers, in front of coaches who’ve seen every trick, and he’ll either keep it up or he won’t. For a region that lives and dies by this team, that’s the storyline worth watching — not the quarterback everyone already knows, but the corner nobody’s talking about yet.

Based on reporting from ESPN, PhiladelphiaEagles.com, and Bleeding Green Nation. The Neighborhood Gazette covers South Jersey at neighborhoodgazette.town.