Nolan Carroll focused on improving, not starting CB spot

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Everybody else wants to know if Nolan Carroll will be a starting cornerback once the regular season starts Sept. 14 in Atlanta.

Nolan Carroll isn’t looking that far ahead.

In fact, he’s looking ahead only to … Monday?

“We’re done with practice, and I’m already looking forward to (practice) Monday and trying to get better,” Carroll said after Eagles OTA practice Thursday.

“I’m not even looking that far down the road. Right now, we’re all just competing. Me, Boyk,. E,J., the young guys. We’re all competing and that can only make us better as a group, and we’ll just see how things play out.”

Boyk is Brandon Boykin and E.J. is E.J. Biggers. The young guys are second-round pick Eric Rowe and sixth-round picks JaCorey Sheperd and Randall Evans.

With Walter Thurmond moving from corner to safety and the 5-foot-9 Boykin unlikely to ever get a chance to start outside as long as Billy Davis is defensive coordinator, and with those rookie draft picks not ready to challenge for a starting job, Carroll is getting the first shot at the starting cornerback job opposite Byron Maxwell.

Carroll got 369 snaps last year, his first season with the Eagles, mainly playing a hybrid dime linebacker spot. He's started 27 games in his career, 22 of them with the Dolphins in 2012 and 2013.

Now in his second year in the system, he should be far ahead of where he was a year ago. And Kelly said he is.

“Nolan Carroll has done an unbelievable job in the offseason,” Kelly said. “He's a guy that stands out in terms of what he's done in the weight room and some of those other things. I just think Nolan is a guy, when you ask me about the defensive backs, that has really done a great job in the offseason.”

If Carroll is counting on being a starter again, he won’t let on.

“I’m not even looking forward to that,” he said. “Right now I’m just taking it one day at a time. … I’m just out here working. That’s all I can concentrate on. Everything else will play itself out.”

Safety Malcolm Jenkins is the only starter back from last year’s beleaguered secondary, which ranked 31st in the NFL in passing yards allowed and gave up 18 completions of 40 yards or more -- most by any NFL team since the Chiefs gave up 22 in 2004.

Jenkins survived a year with Cary Williams and Bradley Fletcher and he sure seems thrilled with what he’s seen so far from Carroll.

“I think he’s having a phenomenal offseason,” Jenkins said. “If there’s one guy who’s really been killing it from on the field to in the weight room to everything it’s probably been Nolan.

“His technique is drastically improved. I think he feels a lot better playing at corner. A lot more confident. Last year we had him kind of playing that dime linebacker all year and he still has that background, that ability to go in and play the dime, the nickel, but he’s really starting to feel comfortable in making a lot of plays on the outside too, and that’s been really encouraging to see.”

Williams and Fletcher started the last two years. Before that it was Nnamdi and DRC. You have to go back to Sheldon Brown and Asante Samuel in 2009 to find the last time the Eagles had two capable starting cornerbacks the same year.

The Eagles are confident they have half a terrific cornerback tandem in former Seahawk Maxwell.

If Carroll can win this job, maybe the Eagles can finally have a respectable secondary again.

“Last year, I was just trying to grasp everything,” Carroll said. “How we do things from just coming in in the mornings doing hydration or HRV (heart-rate variability) stuff to weighing in to lifting to the tempo of practice to the way we call the defense, being around new guys.

“There were just so many things going on and I was just trying to grasp all of it. Slowly but surely after a while I ended up getting into a groove at the end of the season, and I think that’s what helped me out going into this year.”

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