{"id":197153,"date":"2025-07-10T21:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T21:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/197153\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T21:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T21:49:10","slug":"eagles-hint-at-darkhorse-solution-for-vacant-starting-safety-job-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/197153\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles hint at darkhorse solution for vacant starting safety job"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the surprising offseason trade that sent veteran C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans, we know the Philadelphia Eagles will be breaking in a new starting safety alongside Reed Blankenship in 2025.<\/p>\n

Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said<\/a> that it will take the majority of training camp and the preseason to decide on CJGJ\u2019s replacement, acknowledging that third-year pro Sydney Brown and second-round rookie Andrew Mukuba are among the top competitors for the job.<\/p>\n

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Fangio made sure, however, to add a third player\u2019s name into the conversation, hinting at a potential darkhorse starter that few are talking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cTristin\u2019s in that, too,\u201d Fangio said, referring to Tristin McCollum, a former undrafted free agent out of Sam Houston State who was among the surprise stories of last year\u2019s training camp.<\/p>\n

If we learned anything from Fangio\u2019s media availabilities last year \u2014 they\u2019re a must watch for Eagles fans, especially during the regular season \u2014 he doesn\u2019t just say things to appease a reporter\u2019s question. His answers are typically short, blunt \u2014 and honest. From Quinyon Mitchell\u2019s quick ascension up the depth chart, to Zack Baun\u2019s position change, to Cooper DeJean\u2019s slow start during training camp, the Eagles pretty much followed through with everything Fangio told the media in 2024, which makes his unprompted mention of Tristin McCollum notable.<\/p>\n

McCollum balled out in Philly\u2019s three preseason game, ranking among the team leaders in total tackles with 17 while adding a pair of pass breakups and one tackle for loss. He survived cut-down day as a reserve safety and carved out a weekly role on special teams during the Eagles\u2019 run to Super Bowl LIX.<\/p>\n

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He didn\u2019t play a ton on defense \u2014 just 251 total snaps<\/a> \u2014 but he was able to get his feet wet while clearly catching the eye of Fangio and Philly\u2019s decision makers.<\/p>\n

McCollum will need to earn his roster spot once again, as the team added some competition in former first-round pick Lewis Cine and undrafted rookie Andre\u2019 Sam, who was reportedly among the team\u2019s standout players on defense during OTAs.<\/p>\n

But we know Fangio loves McCollum, and another monster preseason could easily keep him in the mix for expanded reps alongside Blankenship in 2025.<\/p>\n

MORE EAGLES NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the surprising offseason trade that sent veteran C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans, we know the Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[913,1172,1171,25,7,253,461,6,242,109,2476,2024,9716,9717,8896,16151,2821,7960,1517],"class_list":{"0":"post-197153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-andrew-mukuba","9":"tag-c-j-gardner-johnson","10":"tag-cooper-dejean","11":"tag-eagles","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-houston-texans","14":"tag-lewis-cine","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","18":"tag-philadelphiaeagles","19":"tag-quinyon-mitchell","20":"tag-reed-blankenship","21":"tag-sydney-brown","22":"tag-training-camp","23":"tag-tristin-mccollum","24":"tag-undrafted-free-agent","25":"tag-vic-fangio","26":"tag-zack-baun"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114831148097134204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}