This series breaks down the Eagles’ key free agents through the lens of the 2025 season. I will get into what the film showed, how each player fits the scheme, and whether I want them to return. If I include cap numbers in the summary, they are from Spotrac, and all data is via SumerSports. As always, I’ll use film clips to support my work. I’ll be releasing a video breakdown on Patreon, too.
Reed Blankenship is one of the trickier free agent decisions the Eagles face this offseason, because he won’t show up in many highlight reels. Over sixteen games in 2025, he produced 83 tackles, an interception, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. Let’s get into it.
Positives
Coverage Structure and Disguise
The single most important trait Fangio asks of his safeties is the ability to operate within a coverage system built on rules, not static assignments. Pre-snap disguise, post-snap rotation, and recognition of offensive structure are not complementary skills in this defense. They are the defense! And Blankenship understands how to execute them.
Watch him in the pre-snap phase, and you’ll notice something that doesn’t always translate to the box score: patience. He holds his depth. He doesn’t telegraph the coverage by rotating early, doesn’t give the quarterback cheap answers by tipping his hand before the ball is snapped. When he does trigger downhill, it’s with excellent timing. He doesn’t go too early or too late. This is a real skill.
The result is that offensive coordinators can’t easily identify where the leverage is coming from, which is the entire point of how Fangio builds his secondary. He’s a smart player.
That processing ability also shows up in how he handles coverage rotations when the offensive picture changes late. Blankenship is not the guy who chases a motion and leaves a huge void. He stays within the coverage’s rules, remains disciplined, and trusts his keys. That kind of reliability is important! At the end of the day, you want consistency and reliability from your safeties. Blankenship gives you that.
Communication Value
This one is harder to see on film unless you know what to look for, but it matters enormously. Fangio’s defense places extraordinary mental demands on safeties. They are responsible for coordinating leverage across zones, passing routes to linebackers, adjusting to motions, and getting the entire secondary on the same page before and after the snap. The quarterback of the backend, essentially.
Blankenship functioned as a stabilizer in all of those exchanges throughout the season. And as the Eagles likely move forward with Andrew Mukuba developing alongside him, that value compounds. You don’t want a young, aggressive safety learning the system next to another player who is still figuring it out himself. You want a communicator who can reinforce the rules, take on some of the processing load, and reduce coverage busts caused by miscommunication rather than individual mistakes.
Defensive communication is not a plug-and-play solution. It takes time to build, and when you lose it, you notice it. He’s not the greatest athlete, but he’s good enough to always be close by, even if he doesn’t always get there.
Run Defense and Situational Awareness
Against the run, Blankenship’s ability to trigger from depth was consistently good. He closes space quickly and finishes tackles cleanly. That fits the Fangio philosophy of limiting explosive gains rather than gambling for negative plays. He’s not a box safety asked to be a run-stopping force, but from the second level, he’s reliable in his angles and rarely gives up the extra yards after contact that compound into big gains.
His situational awareness in the red zone and late-down coverage snaps was also notable at various points this season.
Negatives
Athletic Limitations in Space
Blankenship is a good athlete, not a great one. When his first read is stressed by motion, misdirection, or a quarterback run threat, recovery can be an issue.
There were multiple examples on film this season where formation variation or backfield action pulled him into poor angles or out of his intended run fit. These are situations where a faster, more explosive safety might have been able to correct the error with athleticism alone.
In man-match situations or when forced to carry vertical threats without help, those limitations become more visible. High-end athletes can stress him in space, and when he’s isolated in one-on-one coverage, he lacks the speed to compensate for positioning errors. That’s not a disaster, but it does narrow the assignment profile he should be given. He is at his best in split-safety zone structures with his eyes forward, not as the player you’re asking to run with receivers on the perimeter. He’s more of a true safety than a nickel-safety hybrid that we see around the league.
That limitation constrains what the defense can do to some degree. There are coverages and matchup packages that become harder to deploy when one of your safeties has a defined ceiling in man coverage.
Consistency Questions in 2025
This was probably not Blankenship’s cleanest season snap-to-snap. There were more busts and leverage errors than his 2024 film produced, some of it attributable to playing alongside younger, less experienced safeties at various points, some of it just part of the natural variance that comes with a secondary in transition. He is a stabilizer, and when the structure around him broke down, he lacked the traits to rescue the play on his own.
That’s not a damning indictment. He has been consistently good for an extended stretch, and one uneven season doesn’t erase that track record. But it does factor into valuation. You’re paying for a certain standard of play, and if the supporting cast around him introduces instability, his effectiveness has a ceiling.
The Verdict
Blankenship is a player whose value is fundamentally tied to scheme fit and communication, and that’s not a backhanded compliment. It’s an accurate description of what Fangio’s defense actually needs. Not every safety has to be a coverage eraser or a run-stuffing force. Some have to be the ones who hold the structure together, keep everyone aligned, and make the right play in the right direction so that the defense can operate as designed. Blankenship does that.
The right outcome here is a mid-tier deal that reflects his actual role in the system. I would be fine with the quoted $10m per year average I have seen predicted online. Paying him like a top safety would be a clear overpay for what he brings athletically. But letting him walk to chase a more athletic profile introduces real risk, both in the coverage busts that come from a new safety still learning the system’s rules, and in the development of Mukuba alongside a safety partner who doesn’t know them yet.
At the correct number, he should be retained. He fits the scheme. He supports the structure. He reduces the frequency of coverage errors caused by confusion rather than by individual athleticism. And in a Fangio defense, that specific kind of reliability is worth more than most people’s metrics will tell them.
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here. If you would like to support me further, please check out my Patreon here!
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