Eagles most intriguing No. 6. Can new DB's play, not mouth, do talking?

PHILADELPHIA − There has to be a reason, right?

It's fine that the Seattle Seahawks decided that they could pay only one of their two free agent cornerbacks, and they chose Josh Jobe, who began his career as an undrafted free agent with the Eagles.

Decisions like that are made often in the NFL.

But once Riq Woolen hit free agency, it was hard to fathom that the best he could do was a one-year contract, albeit worth as much as $15 million, with the Eagles.

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After all, Woolen was a Pro Bowl player as a rookie in 2022, when he was the Seahawks' fifth-round pick out of Texas-San Antonio. He led the NFL with six interceptions that year.

The 27-year-old was a full-time starter in Seattle up until the latter stages of last season. Woolen still played regularly throughout the Seahawks' Super Bowl championship run.

"I was a little surprised," Woolen said about not getting a long-term deal in free agency. "I mean, when you got confidence in yourself and you put in a great body of work, you feel like you deserve some type of fruit for your labor. But sometimes things don't go your way."

That makes Woolen No. 6 among the Eagles' eight most intriguing players heading into the start of training camp on July 28. It's not necessarily the eight best players as much as it is a compilation of players who could determine the Eagles' success or failure in 2026.

Woolen, if he's in peak form, gives the Eagles options at cornerback that they have had only in their recent Super Bowl seasons in 2022 (Darius Slay and James Bradberry) and in 2024 (Slay and Quinyon Mitchell).

In 2023, Bradberry fell off the proverbial cliff and the Eagles secondary was a mess. In 2025, Mitchell was paired with veteran free agent Adoree Jackson, who was a steep dropoff from Mitchell. So much so that the Eagles used Cooper DeJean at outside corner when the Eagles were in base defense (about 20%-25% of the time). DeJean played nickel the rest of the time.

That's why the Eagles need Woolen to be, well, not a big dropoff from Mitchell because he's expected to play every snap on the outside. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said the plan is to use DeJean at safety in base defense, then nickel the rest of the time.

The Eagles certainly saw enough from Woolen during the spring practices to feel confident in that scenario.

"He's a rare guy in that you don't see many corners in the league that are 6-foot-4," Fangio said. "You don't see many that are 6-2 or even 6-1. There's a reason for that. It's hard to find guys at those heights that can move and mirror receivers that are hard to cover. He can do that for a guy his height. ... His length is more of an asset than a detriment in his case."

So if it's not Woolen's size and speed, could it be his mouth?

Sure, Woolen does have a tendency to let his emotions get the best of him. That was evident during the NFC Championship game last season. In the third quarter, with the Seahawks up 31-20 over the Rams, Woolen broke up a pass on third-and-12 intended for star receiver Puka Nacua.

As the Rams were setting up to punt, Woolen walked down the Rams' sideline taunting them, well beyond the end of the play.

The referee threw the penalty flag for a 15-yard taunting penalty, giving the Rams a first down. On the next play, Nacua beat Woolen for a 34-yard TD, cutting the Rams' deficit to four.

The Seahawks managed to hold off the Rams the rest of the way, winning by that 31-27 score. Still, that penalty could have changed everything. And it wasn't Woolen's first taunting penalty that season. He had two others for three total. The Seahawks led the NFL with five. As a comparison, the next most penalized team for taunting was the Eagles with three, the same total as Woolen by himself.

"It's crazy because that's the most taunting penalties I ever got," Woolen said in June." I got one the year before (in 2024). But other than that, I really wasn't getting taunting penalties. But I mean, whenever you make plays, you got to celebrate. I just got to be smarter when I celebrate."

The Eagles are confident that Woolen can curb his taunting.

"I think he'll grow out of that," Fangio said. "We'll show him plenty of examples. ... If he doesn't learn from [the playoff game], I don't know how he would learn from anything else. But I'm confident he'll overcome that."

But that shouldn't explain everything about why Woolen didn't get a multiyear deal. The problem for the Eagles is that if Woolen plays like the Eagles expect him to, he likely won't get a multiyear deal with them in 2027 because he'll get it somewhere else, thus pricing himself out of Philly.

And if Woolen doesn't play like the Eagles expect, he probably won't be back anyway, and might not get a multiyear deal anywhere else, either.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl. Sign up for the "Eye On The Eagles" newsletter, emailed to your inbox every Friday morning. Read his coverage of the Eagles’ championship season in “Flying High,” a hardcover coffee-table book from Delaware Online/The News Journal. Details at Fly.ChampsBook.com

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Eagles most intriguing No. 6. Can new DB's play, not mouth, do talking?