Eagles CB Jalen Mills Shakes Off Early Bad Play, ‘doubt' Vs. Bears

You heard all about the play Jalen Mills gave up. You may not have heard a whole lot about what came after it.
 
Because there wasn’t much.
 
Mills, the Eagles’ rookie cornerback, got off to a rough start in the Eagles-Bears game Monday night at Soldier Field.
 
He was badly beaten on a 49-yard bomb from Jay Cutler to Alshon Jeffery early in the second quarter that led to a Bears touchdown.
 
“I was doubting myself after that, you know?” Mills said.
 
Mills, a 22-year-old rookie seventh-round pick, also missed a tackle on a short pass to Eddie Royal that went for eight yards on the same drive.
 
“I’m confident in myself but for sure [it helped] having guys after the play like Rodney McLeod and [Malcolm] Jenkins, come up to me, coach Cory [Undlin], coach [Jim] Schwartz, and say to me, ‘You know you can cover that route. That was on you. There wasn’t anything he did to you, that was just you being too aggressive and not really staying disciplined.’
 
“By them showing they have confidence in me, that just automatically puts it back in me."
 
Tape of the play is not kind to Mills, who bit on a double move and never got back into the play.
 
“Here's the one thing I would like -- and I've already told him this, this is no secret -- the only thing I was disappointed in with him is finding the football in the air,” defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said.
 
“That's something he did a really good job of in training camp. That's sort of a calling card for a corner. You can't play with your back to the ball too much. Are you going to get beat on a double move? Yeah. If you are aggressive and you are covering, guess what? That's something that happens and he needs to learnDe from it.
 
“We need to get a little more safety help and everything else. But the whole thing of locating the ball and keeping your technique, I think that's the most important thing to come out of this game.”
 
At the moment he caught that deep ball from Cutler – three minutes into the second quarter – Jeffery had three catches for 73 yards. The Bears scored their only touchdown three plays later to take a 7-3 lead.
 
After that?
 
Jeffery, a Pro Bowler, had just two catches for 23 yards over the game’s final 42 minutes, and the Eagles scored the next 22 points. The Bears’ other 6-3 wide out, Kevin White, was just 2-for-24 after halftime.
 
The 22-year-old Mills certainly bounced back in style.
 
“That’s one thing that I think going into it we were pretty confident that if he gave up a play he wasn’t going to lose his confidence or lose his technique,” Jenkins said.
 
“Even the play he gave up, he was just really trying to make a play he didn’t need to and so he kind of got outside of his technique.
 
“Other than that play, we thought he played really well. Played with good technique, He tackled pretty well except for that one. For a rookie in his first start? I thought he played pretty well.”
 
Leodis McKelvin has been ruled out for Sunday's game against the Steelers, so Mills will likely be out there again, this time with Antonio Brown – the NFL’s best receiver – across the line of scrimmage.
 
“He’s not backing down at all,” Jenkins said. “He wants that matchup, which is good. He’s not afraid. He’s not going to play soft. He’s going to compete and that’s what we want.”
 
And that’s what Mills has done since the Eagles selected him out of LSU in April, making him the 47th defensive back of 51 taken in this year’s draft.
 
“Jalen since Day 1 since he got here, you just see his work ethic, and I think that showed Monday night,” McLeod said.
 
“Had a little adversity, got beat for a deep ball but was up for the challenge. You see him at the end of the fourth quarter still pressing and still working on his technique.
 
“As a defensive back you have to let the play go and move on because there’s a lot of other plays to be made and I think after that he did a great job the rest of the game and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does Sunday.”
 
Mills got 12 snaps against the Browns after McKelvin suffered a hamstring injury. He played 43 of the Eagles’ 52 snaps on Monday night.
 
“He showed a short memory in a good way,” Schwartz said. “There's some guys that give up a play or miss a tackle and all of a sudden they become tentative and become conservative out there. He kept his stinger up, so to speak, and we like seeing that.”

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