PHILADELPHIA — Darius Slay used to pick on Quinyon Mitchell for his lack of takeaways. It was hard to fault him, no matter how outstanding Mitchell was in his rookie season.
16 games played. No interceptions. No forced fumbles. Runner up for Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Mitchell was an excellent cover corner in his rookie season, strictly playing the opposite side of Darius Slay as the team’s No. 2 cornerback. Opposing quarterbacks had a hard time beating Mitchell, as they completed just 53.2% of passes against him — compiling a 73.5 rating when he was the primary defender in coverage.
A pretty good year for a player that didn’t have any interceptions. The competitor and football lover in Mitchell wasn’t satisfied.
“I’ve been working this offseason on them, every day I go out to practice and work on it,” Mitchell said. “So it’s something I just been doing.”
Those takeaways didn’t lack last postseason. Mitchell had two interceptions in the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship run, allowing just a 22.6 passer rating as the primary defender in coverage. Heading into the Super Bowl, opposing quarterbacks completed just 29.4% of their passes and had a 0.0 passer rating targeting Mitchell.
The weakness became a strength in the postseason. Mitchell carried that strength into this training camp, albeit with a new role.
With Slay not on the roster, the No. 1 cornerback job belongs to Mitchell. He’s handled the transition well, playing both the left and right side and trailing A.J. Brown throughout the training camp practices.
Not many people can cover Brown around the NFL. Mitchell has more than held his own against one of the best receivers in the NFL, having an interception against Brown in training camp — picking off Jalen Hurts on a deep ball to Brown earlier in the week.
In position to make the play, Mitchell tracked the ball well and stood toe-to-toe with Brown as Jalen Hurts threw the pass down the right sideline. Mitchell snagged the slightly underthrown ball and created the turnover, creating a sideline eruption from the defensive players.
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This was a play Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio admitted Mitchell wouldn’t have made last year.
“I think it can improve obviously with work and I think the work he’s put in has made it. He has improved,” Fangio said. “Ball skills are a natural thing, too, so the improvement you can make is incremental, but any improvement he can make, he’ll make because he’ll work at it.”
How did Mitchell become better at creating turnovers? Technology has come a long way.
“They got some computer screen, so like tracking it and they have some sort of thing where you throw it up and name a color and I stretch the color.” Mitchell said. “Little stuff like that.”
The colors Mitchell is seeing on that screen? Red, yellow, and blue. He sees a figure and catches whatever color it is. Mitchell admits it’s helped him “a little bit.”
While the turnovers are improving, Mitchell’s cover skills are showcased whenever he’s on Brown. Last year, the two were talking trash and bringing out the competitive fire in each other to improve their games.
This year? They are just putting their heads down and going to work.
“It’s been really fun,” Mitchell said. “He’s been getting me better, but at the same time, I wanna make him better. So on game days it’s easy for him, and I wanna make it easy.”
The more takeaways Mitchell creates, the greater his reputation gets around the league. Mitchell already has a rep as the best young corners in the game, but that’s not enough.
His expectations are different.
“It’s no bar. There’s no ceiling,” Mitchell said. “I just wanna get better each and every day.”
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