What Kelee Ringo wants to work on after promising rookie season

What Kelee Ringo wants to work on after promising rookie season originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

There weren’t many Eagles who got better as the 2023 went on and ended with a collapse.

Kelee Ringo was one of them.

The Eagles’ fourth-round pick out of Georgia played a grand total of one defensive snap through the first 12 weeks of the season but showed enough promise over the stretch run to make you think he could have a really bright future.

“I just continued to try to stay ready the entire year,” Ringo said a couple days after his rookie season ended. “And the best thing I could do was work on myself so when the time did come, I would be ready. That’s the simplest way to explain it. I thought I would be doing myself a disservice if I wasn’t training like I was playing every single week, even if I wasn’t.”

After barely playing on defense through 12 weeks, Ringo played 198 snaps in the last five games and took over as a starter as Darius Slay missed time after needing a minor knee surgery.

In the playoffs, Slay returned but Ringo didn’t completely lose his role. Because of the struggles of James Bradberry, Ringo found himself in a rotation in the playoff game in Tampa and still played 35 snaps.

Even though Slay and Bradberry are under contract in 2024, it’s hard to imagine Bradberry returning after a dismal 2023 season. The Eagles still have to go through free agency and the draft, but it’s not crazy to think that Ringo has a shot to be a starter in his second NFL season.

And he thinks there’s a chance for a bigger role.

“Yessir,” Ringo said. “Most definitely.”

What does Ringo want to improve most this offseason?

“I would say my mental game,” he answered. “Just have the game slow down even more than it has been.”

Ringo said he wants to spend a good bit of time this offseason studying his reps and going over coverages. The Eagles have a new defensive coordinator in 2024 so he’ll have a newish scheme to learn as well.

During the pre-draft process, Ringo garnered some first round buzz but didn’t hear his name called in the first three rounds. The Eagles made a bold move on the start of Day 3 by trading a 2024 third-round pick to draft Ringo at No. 105 overall near the top of the fourth round.

The thinking was that Ringo was a raw prospect but he had the size (6-2, 207) and athleticism to offer a ton of potential at the NFL level.

Here’s what general manager Howie Roseman said the day of the pick:

“Ringo was a guy that stuck out on our board. He had a really high grade. He was a guy we were considering at those picks when we picked in the third round. And then we went through it and we kind of say, What’s our grade like? A year from now, not having that pick, how’s that going to affect us? Who may be available at that pick? We had higher grades on him than the pick that we traded. We felt like this was a 20-year-old kid who was a good kid, tremendous physical tools. We really had an opportunity to develop him. He doesn’t have to come in here and be a super hero. He can learn. We think we have tremendous veterans at that position who can show the way. He can come in, in a role where he’s learning and there’s not a lot of pressure on him and he can develop. We believe in the player and the person.”

Before Ringo became a contributor on defense, he was playing a bunch on special teams. He finished the year with the second-most special teams snaps of anyone on the team with 305 (69%). The only guy ahead of him was Josh Jobe, who played 323.

It was during practice, though, where Ringo began to show his ability on defense. On the scout team, Ringo was going against guys like A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith daily and they noticed the jump.

When Ringo got the chance to play, he feels like he proved he had solid mechanics and showed that the game began to slow down for him at the NFL level.

Ringo played in all 17 games with 4 starts and had 1 interception, 1 sack, 21 tackles and 2 pass breakups. Opposing quarterbacks were 7-for-11 for 102 yards and a touchdown targeting him during the season.

“It wasn’t even necessarily wanting to prove anything to anyone else, it was just to myself,” Ringo said. “I know who I am as a player and I just wanted to be able to carry myself like that each week.”

One of the reasons the Eagles really liked Ringo was his age. He will turn 22 this June and has a ton of potential. With the defense likely to change quite a bit this offseason, it’s unclear if Ringo will have a legitimate shot to be a starter in 2024.

But after what we saw in his brief action in 2023? Can’t rule it out.

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