After re-signing James Bradberry and restructuring Darius Slay, the Eagles added another cornerback on Thursday night, and like Slay and Bradberry, this one is also a former second-round pick.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Eagles signed 25-year-old outside cornerback Greedy Williams. There are no conditions or contract duration available yet.
Williams played high school football at Calvary Baptist in Shreveport, Lousiana, the high school that Doug Pederson coached at several years earlier before embarking on an NFL coaching career.
He led the SEC with six interceptions as a freshman at LSU in 2017, becoming only the second LSU freshman in the past 35 years to earn All-SEC First Team honors. The first was punter Brad Wing in 2011, two years before his training camp with the Eagles. He added two INTs in 2018.
The Browns made Williams the 46th pick in the 2019 draft, seven picks before the Eagles nabbed Mile Sanders. He was the seventh cornerback taken overall.
Williams – whose first name is Andraez – started 21 games with the Browns in four years. He started 12 games as a rookie, but missed the entire 2020 season after suffering a nerve injury in his shoulder during training camp. He had his first two interceptions in 2021 – off Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr.
But after playing 680 and 590 defensive snaps in 2019 and 2021 and starting 20 games, he only played 105 snaps and started just one game last season. According to Stathead, opponents who targeted him this year were 9-for-10 for 163 yards and two touchdowns—a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
Of his 1,375 career defensive shots, only 45 were in the slot, including only 10 since his rookie year.
Although the Eagles brought back Bradberry and Slay, they don’t have many young corners on their roster. Zech McPhearson, a 24-year-old fourth-round pick in 2021, has played 278 defensive snaps in two years, and Josh Jobe, who spent the year on the 53-man roster as an undrafted rookie, played 12 defensive snaps (and 220 on special teams). Josiah Scott is 23, but he is a corner kicker.
In Williams, the Eagles get a cornerback who was very highly regarded when he came out of LSU, has starting experience, is only 25, and presumably has a very low price tag, because that’s all Howie Roseman can afford right now.
Williams was the cornerback who covered AJ Brown in Eagles-Browns joint practices last summer in Berea, Ohio, when Brown made a spectacular high-reel catch in the end zone on a Jalen Hurts lob.
Later, after another flyout to Williams, while Williams was on the ground, Brown stood over Williams and glared at him.
Now they are teammates and will both face the Browns in another round of joint workouts in August.
The Eagles have brought back some of their own defensive free agents – Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, Bradberry and Slay – but Williams is the first defensive player from another team they’ve signed since free duty began on Monday. The only other outside player they have brought on is running back Rashad Penny.
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