The Philadelphia Eagles have parted ways with 2 members of their secondary in the last month that most teams would die for — safety C.J. Gardner Johnson and cornerback Darius Slay.
Both players were front and center as the Eagles made their run to winning Super Bowl LIX on February 9 with a dominant defensive performance against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The reasoning behind letting Slay go to the Pittsburgh Steelers on a 1-year, $10 million free agent contract isn’t complicated. The Eagles have arguably the NFL’s 2 best young cornerbacks in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. Both were starters as rookies in 2024 and considered foundational players moving forward.
With Gardner-Johnson, it’s a little more complicated. The Eagles traded him to the Houston Texans via a trade on March 11, along with a sixth round pick in the 2026 NFL draft in exchange for former first round pick and offensive guard Kenyon Green and a 2025 fifth round pick.
While the Eagles might make a move to add a safety in the 2025 NFL draft to grow with Mitchell and DeJean and de-age the secondary, so to speak, the Eagles might still consider a veteran safety on a 1-year contract to provide depth.
One player Philadelphia should consider in a “Washed Or Not?” scenario is former Baltimore Ravens safety Marcus Williams , who was designated a post-June 1 release on March 12.
“Washed Or Not?”: Facts We Should Consider
Williams has been one of the NFL’s biggest free agent disappointments in the last few years after he signed a 3-year, $70 million contract with the Ravens in March 2022 after spending the first 5 seasons of his career with the New Orleans Saints .
When we go to the “washed or not” debate the first and maybe only thing to consider with Williams is how injuries have impacted his game and if they’re something he can recover from.
In his first season with the Ravens in 2022, Williams had 61 tackles, 4 interceptions, 8 pass deflections and 1 fumble recovery but missed 7 games with a dislocated wrist.
In 2023, Williams had 55 tackles, 8 pass deflections and 1 interception but missed 6 games after suffering a torn pectoral muscle in his left shoulder in the season opener but opted against season-ending surgery. In 2024, he was benched twice for poor play before he missed the final 5 games as a healthy scratch.
NFL careers don’t typically go off the cliff over upper-body injuries like the one Williams suffered — especially not at 28 years old. It might be worth a little digging on the part of the Eagles to see if Williams has reconsidered having surgery or what the results of a medical exam tell them.
If he could even approach the form he had with the Saints or his first season with the Ravens — 19 interceptions in his first 6 seasons — a starting point could be a 1-year, $1.5 million offer.
“When Williams returned for the 2024 season, he evaded questions about his health, saying he did not remember his injury,” The Baltimore Banner’s Giana Han wrote on March 12. “… After the season, the Ravens and Williams reworked his contract so they would have to pay only $2.1 million in salary until June 1, and his $15,245,216 in dead money would be split, with $6,027,918 on 2025’s cap and $9,217,298 on 2026’s. If the Ravens indeed designate him as a post-June 1 release, they would save $2.1 million in 2025.”
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