Player

Reed Blankenship

S · Eagles

Reed Blankenship: facts drawn from the play-by-play.

FanIQ Research · May 11, 2026 · 6 facts, every one from the play-by-play

UDFA → 4-year Eagles starter: 221 career tackles, climbed from 23 to 76 to 66 to 56 across his first four seasons.

Trend

Blankenship by season (regular season)

Season	G	Tackles	TFL	PDs	FF	FR
2022	8	19	0	2	0	1
2023	15	76	2	11	0	1
2024	15	48	0	6	1	2
2025	16	53	1	4	1	1

Signed as an undrafted free agent out of Middle Tennessee in 2022, Blankenship started the season as a backup and finished it as a starter. He's missed only a handful of regular-season games since 2023, becoming one of the most reliable starting safeties on the back-to-back NFC-champion Eagles.

The 2023 season is the standout statistical year: 76 tackles, 11 pass defenses — career highs that don't show up again until you add in his Super Bowl LIX run.

Tackles by season

Season	Tackles
2022	19
2023	76
2024	48
2025	53

Started every postseason game of the Eagles' SB LIX run — 18 tackles across 4 playoff games.

Milestone

2024 Eagles playoff run

Round	Tackles	FF
WC	7	1
DIV	4	0
CON	6	0
SB	1	0

Blankenship was a full-time starter for all four Eagles playoff games in the SB LIX run, racking up 18 tackles and a forced fumble in the Wild Card round. The Eagles defense didn't allow a touchdown until the second half of the Super Bowl — Blankenship's coverage at the deep safety spot was a big part of that.

For an undrafted free agent who was a special-teamer to start his career, a Super Bowl ring earned as a starter is the milestone year.

11 PDs in his sophomore year (2023) — more than his 2024 and 2025 combined.

Split

Pass defenses by season

Season	PDs
2022	2
2023	11
2024	6
2025	4

The 2023 line (11 PDs in 15 games) was a sophomore-year leap that aligned with Sean Desai's defense leaning into a single-high look. After Vic Fangio took over in 2024, Blankenship's role shifted to more run support and less downfield contest — the PD numbers fell to 6, then 4 in 2025, even though tackles stayed stable.

Different defense, different job description — the production line followed.

PDs by season

Season	PDs
2022	2
2023	11
2024	6
2025	4

5 career fumble recoveries in 4 seasons — high-end ball-hawk rate for a safety.

Rare

FR totals by year: 1 (2022), 1 (2023), 2 (2024), 1 (2025) — 5 career fumble recoveries across 54 regular-season games. The Eagles' pass rush and front-7 takeaway pressure puts loose balls on the ground, but someone has to be there to scoop them. Blankenship's tracking instincts from the deep safety spot put him in those positions repeatedly.

Add the 2 career forced fumbles (2024, 2025), and he's a 7-takeaway player even before counting interceptions.

2024 Eagles Super Bowl team: only 48 regular-season tackles in 15 games — lowest of his starter years.

Anomaly

On paper, the Super Bowl-winning 2024 season was Blankenship's lightest defensive load — 48 tackles, 0 TFLs, 6 PDs. The reason: Vic Fangio's two-high zone scheme keeps safeties deep, far from the line of scrimmage, and away from tackle opportunities. When the underneath coverage is doing its job, the deep safety just patrols.

The playoff line tells a different story — 18 tackles in 4 games is a much higher per-game rate than his regular season, because playoff offenses challenged the Eagles' deep coverage more aggressively.

4 forced fumbles + recoveries across the 2024 SB run window — Eagles' takeaway DBs ranked among the league's best.

Comparison

In the 2024 regular season + playoffs, Blankenship had 1 FF, 2 FRs in the regular season, and a forced fumble in the Wild Card game — a 4-takeaway window across one calendar year. Eagles ranked top-3 in defensive takeaways during the SB LIX run, and the back end was the engine of it.

2025 followed the same pattern: 1 FF, 1 FR, even with the team's playoff run ending in the Wild Card round.

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