Eagles Defensive Front is ‘Ridiculous,' Says Rival NFC Executive
PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Eagles' defensive line is deep and talented.
It’s not often that you can lose a $20 million player in free agency like Javon Hargrave and accomplished, albeit aging, veterans like Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh, and have it barely register as a blip on the radar.
Pro Football Focus recently rated the Eagles’ front as the best in football and NFL Media’s Bucky Brooks one-upped that by proclaiming the unit as the No. 1 group regardless of position in the entire NFL.
It’s not hard to figure out why so many are bullish on Philly's defensive front.
“I was looking at that group earlier (in the offseason) and counted 16 or 17 NFL players. It’s ridiculous,” a rival NFC executive told SI.com’s Eagles Today.
Despite coming off a 70-sack season and becoming the first team in NFL with four players to dump the quarterback 10-or-more times, the Eagles doubled down by using both of their first-round picks on bolstering the unit even further, selecting Georgia teammates Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith.
“It just represents how we feel,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman told reporters after the draft concluded. “We want to build a team with an O-line and a D-line, and it was important for us to make a statement in this draft in this offseason that this is how we believe we’re going to win.”
The depth on the defensive front is ridiculous with PFF noting that the second-team D-Line in Philly would be top 20 in the NFL by itself.
Almost every team around the league pays lip service to the rotational nature of the defensive front with the goal of keeping the stud pass rushers fresh as potential late-game closures. Few commit to it like the Eagles, though.
Under new defensive coordinator Sean Desai, the belief is that the Eagles will keep the same philosophy, which features variable fronts.
The “50 front” employs a nose or shade technique (Jordan Davis), two 4i players (Fletcher Cox and Carter penciled in), and two edge rushers (Hasson Reddick and Josh Sweat), and is designed to stop the run in an effort to create known-pass situations.
The default “40 front” in those spots will likely be Reddick and Sweat on the edges with Cox and Carter inside if the latter can quickly live up to the billing as perhaps the most gifted player in the 2023 draft. If the start-up costs are a little steeper than expected for Carter, the Eagles will simply shift to the emerging Milton Williams or slide accomplished, versatile veteran Brandon Graham, who is also the third man on the edge, inside.
The Eagles also like third-year defensive tackle Marlon Tuipulotu as a run-stuffer inside, and still possess 2017 first-round pick Derek Barnett, who is coming off a torn ACL that wiped out his 2022 season, on the edge.
Free agent defensive tackle Kentavius Street has been a proven contributor in both San Francisco and New Orleans, and Patrick Johnson got some valuable reps as a pass rusher last season after Barnett went down and Robert Quinn failed to revive his career as a trade-deadline pickup.
Want developmental prospects?
Well the Eagles have that as well with 350-pound nose tackle Noah Elliss, rookie three-technique Moro Ojomo, and edge Janarius Robinson, a 6-foot-5, 258-pound cookie-cutter template of what an NFL pass-rusher is supposed to look like.
And then there’s Smith, a redundancy to Reddick’s impressive skill set of energy and explosion with a tad more athleticism if that’s possible.
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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
