Drew Mukuba had finally found some consistency in his rookie season and then it was over in a flash.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 18, Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio agreed that the rookie from Texas had finally found consistency in his game after an \u201cuneven\u201d start to his season.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Mukuba fractured his fibula in Dallas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe toughest part about that was just knowing that I can\u2019t finish the year out,\u201d Mukuba said at locker cleanout day last week. \u201cI just started to build some consistency in my game. So knowing that I was able to do that and that I was playing at a high level, I felt like going down, that was kind of discouraging.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I kind of got over it with the guys around me and the help that I had. They helped change my mentality. Knowing that this is not a bad thing, just another way, another hurdle I gotta get over. I was able to work through that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Mukuba suffered his fibula fracture that needed surgery, the Eagles didn\u2019t rule him out for the season and held out some public hope that he could return at some point.<\/p>\n
But at locker cleanout day, Mukuba said there was no way he could have returned even if the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl. The day after the Eagles\u2019 season ended, Mukuba was still in a walking boot. But he did express an expectation that he will be ready for spring practices in May.<\/p>\n
While Mukuba\u2019s season ended on a sour note because of the injury, he feels pretty encouraged by some of his progress as a rookie.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, definitely,\u201d Mukuba said. \u201cI feel like with my experience this year, everything I seen, I feel like I played a lot of snaps to see a lot of things. I feel like going into my second year, that\u2019s going to help me a lot because I\u2019m already ahead. I know what to expect and I know what\u2019s going to happen. Now it\u2019s just my job to do my part.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mukuba didn\u2019t begin the season as a starter, he the second-round pick from Texas took over that role and started the next 10 games. He had some ups and downs but showed some promise with 46 tackles, 2 interceptions and 3 pass breakups.<\/p>\n
Mukuba made some plays on the ball but he gave up some plays too. He was targeted 20 times in his rookie season and gave up 14 passes for 263 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. His opposer passer rating allowed was a 106.3. But Fangio expected some growing pains for a rookie safety.<\/p>\n
Like Fangio said earlier in the season, Mukuba\u2019s rookie season was \u201cuneven\u201d at one point. But he really began to even it out before the injury. He found a stability in his game.<\/p>\n
How did he get there?<\/p>\n
\u201cJust looking in the mirror, looking at myself and what I needed to do on my end,\u201d Mukuba said. \u201cI just felt like there were a lot of things I needed to get better at and I didn\u2019t get to rush it. Just take one step at a time, finding one thing to work on, get better at that and then finding something else to improve on. Once I got to do that, that\u2019s when I started to see my game grow, started to get better in a lot of areas I was struggling in. That\u2019s when everything picked up for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Mukuba went down, the Eagles started Sydney Brown for one game but then quickly inserted veteran Marcus Epps into that spot for the rest of the season next to Reed Blankenship.<\/p>\n
There are some serious questions about the Eagles\u2019 safety position going into 2026 because both Blankenship and Epps are pending free agents. There\u2019s a chance one or both could be gone.<\/p>\n
Blankenship, 26, joined the Eagles as an undrafted rookie in 2022 but became a full-time starter over the last three seasons. He was able to really help Mukuba during his rookie season.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust really how to be a pro, to be honest with you,\u201d Mukuba said when asked what he learned from Blankenship. \u201cI feel like how he handles his business, how he takes care of his body, what he did off the field with the person he is overall, it really taught me a lot. I was just sitting back and watching him and learning and he definitely showed me how to be a true professional.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drew Mukuba had finally found some consistency in his rookie season and then it was over in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,4904,7,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-691220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-eagles-blog","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","14":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691220","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=691220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}