The Eagles Should Pay Reed Blankenship — Even After a Bad Season
Reed Blankenship's PFF grade was ugly. But Vic Fangio values him for a reason, and the Eagles can't afford to keep letting defensive leaders walk out the door.
The JAKIB Staff
contributor
The Numbers Are Ugly
Let's not sugarcoat it. Reed Blankenship did not have a good season. A 46.5 overall PFF grade. A 32.5 coverage grade. Those are objectively terrible numbers for a starting safety on a Super Bowl-winning team.
If you're looking strictly at analytics, the answer is simple: let him walk and find someone better. The talent pool is deep enough. Safeties are replaceable. Move on.
But football isn't played on a spreadsheet.
What Vic Fangio Sees
Vic Fangio values Blankenship for things that don't show up in PFF grades. He's the communicator. He's the guy who gets everyone lined up on the back end. He's the vocal leader of the secondary, the guy the defense looks to when things get chaotic.
There's a theme with Fangio: he sees value in players that the general public overlooks or actively dismisses. He did it with the entire defensive roster construction last season. The best defensive minds in football evaluate players differently than fans scrolling through Twitter grades.
Blankenship is an undrafted player who fought his way into a starting role. He changed agents before last season, clearly positioning himself for a payday. Then he had his worst statistical year. That bad season actually helps the Eagles from a financial standpoint — they can probably bring him back at a reasonable number rather than the premium he would've commanded after a strong year.
The Bigger Problem
The Eagles let Josh Sweat and Milton Williams walk last offseason. They're likely to lose Nakobe Dean this year. If they also let Blankenship go, that's four defensive leaders gone in two offseasons.
At some point, you can't just keep letting everybody walk and expecting Fangio to turn replacements into gold. The talent on this defense is excellent — Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell, Zack Baun, Jalen Carter — but continuity matters. Leadership matters. The locker room voice matters.
Is the grass really greener on the other side of Reed Blankenship? Maybe. But maybe it's not. And the Eagles are reaching a point where they need to draw a line and say: this is our core, and we're keeping it together.
The Smart Play
Let Blankenship test the market. See what's out there. But keep the door open and stay in communication throughout free agency. If the market doesn't explode for him — and it might not, given the bad year — bring him back at a team-friendly deal.
The worst outcome is letting him walk, scrambling to find a replacement safety, and watching the secondary leadership evaporate in a defense that just won a championship.
The defense gave up 17 points per game last season. It's the backbone of how the Eagles win. Blankenship is part of that backbone. Pay the man.
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