Beyond the crushing blow of a home playoff loss, Eagles safety Reed Blankenship was feeling the reality of what was to come.<\/p>\n
The free agent safety knew that the locker room would look different for the 2026 season. He knew that the team that signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Middle Tennessee in 2022 might not re-sign him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows where we all end up?\u201d Blankenship said after the Eagles\u2019 23-19 loss to San Francisco. \u201cThat\u2019s just part of the business side of it. They can\u2019t keep us all. I wish they could.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb READ MORE: Eagles free agency news: Reed Blankenship, Nakobe Dean, Jaelan Phillips all sign elsewhere<\/a><\/p>\n As free agency opened Monday, Blankenship\u2019s words rang true. No, they can\u2019t keep them all, and on the defensive side of the ball, at least, they aren\u2019t keeping many of them.<\/p>\n Blankenship, according to ESPN<\/a>, is signing with the Houston Texans for three years and $24.75 million. The news on Monday evening made Blankenship the third defensive starter from that playoff game heading elsewhere, joining Jaelan Phillips<\/a> (Carolina) and Nakobe Dean<\/a> (Las Vegas).<\/p>\n Blankenship, a three-year starter, was a captain and the quarterback of the Eagles\u2019 defense. In 56 regular-season games across four seasons with the Eagles, Blankenship tallied 308 tackles, 23 pass breakups, nine interceptions, and three fumble recoveries.<\/p>\n With Blankenship on the move, the Eagles are pretty thin at safety. Drew Mukuba, the Eagles\u2019 second-round pick last year, will be back from injury to start the season. Who will be next to him? That player may not be on the roster yet. The current internal options would be Sydney Brown, Andre\u2019 Sam, or Michael Carter II. Marcus Epps, who started down the stretch for the Eagles, is also a free agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beyond the crushing blow of a home playoff loss, Eagles safety Reed Blankenship was feeling the reality of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,6,112493,222],"class_list":["post-803273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-texans","tag-football","tag-houston","tag-houston-texans","tag-houstontexans","tag-nfl","tag-reed-blankenship-houston-texans-2026-nfl-free-agency","tag-texans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116201961930421112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803273","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=803273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}