With NFL free agency set to begin in 8 hours, the rumor mill is quickly heating up and it appears that the Eagles may be close to shoring up one of their big needs at LB. Pete Prisco of CBS says he "keeps hearing Dan Connor to Eagles will be done."
Connor is a four year NFL vet who has spent his whole career with the Panthers. He hasn't played a ton thanks in large part to injuries, but did take over the starting job last season when Jon Beason went down. He proved to be a capable run defender, but actually played less than half of Carolina's defensive snaps. That certainly means that they didn't see him as an every down LB. As Sheil Kapadia points out, 68% of his snaps came against the run.
Connor would not likely come at a big price, so it could be that the Eagles are looking at the Penn State product as more of a situational type player. It may not be the home run type move some may have liked to see, but there can be no doubt that the team will be stronger against the run with Connor in the middle than pretty much anyone they have now. Plus, this type of move would not rule out the chance of them taking a LB early in the draft.
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