‘Succession’: Inside Eagles Plan to Replace 7 Starters
PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Eagles are coming off a season that produced a franchise-record 14 wins, an NFC Championship, and a heart-breaking 38-35 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
“Running it back” was never going to be possible in the modern NFL where the turnover rate for all 32 teams is always significant from year to year.
For the Eagles, seven 2022-23 starters were lost to free agency: two on offense (running back Miles Sanders and right guard Isaac Seumalo), and five on defense (defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, linebackers T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White, and safeties C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Marcus Epps).
With training camp approaching, it’s time to look at where the succession plans stand when it comes to the projected replacements.
RB1 - The Plan: Bringing Philadelphia native D’Andre Swift home behind the NFL’s best offensive line and alongside a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who manipulates spacing better than most could help Swift, the former 2020 No. 35 overall pick, live up to the promise he had coming out of Georgia.
Contingency: A Moneyball approach in which three backs (Swift, oft-injured free-agent Rashaad Penny, and Kenny Gainwell) combine to replicate the 1,269 wishing yards Sanders gave the Eagles last season.
RIGHT GUARD - The Plan: The heir-apparent to All-Pro Jason Kelce at center, 2022 second-round pick Cam Jurgens, slides down while biding his time for the eventual takeover in the pivot. The biggest concern is size with Jurgens in that Kelce, also an undersized player, was helped by bigger bodies at the position in the past like Brandon Brooks and Seumalo.
Contingency: Rookie third-round pick Tyler Steen hits the ground running and offers the size component the Eagles are used to. The luxury is that the worst-case scenario is veteran sixth-man Jack Driscoll taking over, an already somewhat proven competent commodity at the position. That said, it’s hard to imagine any of the contenders having the type of season Seumalo had in 2022 before signing a big-money deal with Pittsburgh.
UNDER TACKLE - The Plan: Perhaps the most talented player in the draft, Jalen Carter, lives up to the hype and easily replaces a Pro Bowl-level interior pass rusher in Javon Hargrave.
Contingency: If the start-up costs for Carter are steeper than expected, third-year pro Milton Williams is an ascending player who can step in with efficacy although likely not to the level of a Hargrave.
MIKE LINEBACKER - The Plan: After a redshirt rookie year, Nakobe Dean steps in and looks like the Butkus Award winner he was at Georgia in 2021.
Contingency: The Eagles lack depth at the position as a whole and if Dean falters or is injured, Nicholas Morrow would slide over from the weakside spot and handle the Mike duties, something he did in Chicago. Both players are undersized and unlikely to provide the physicality to the defense that Edwards did.
WILL LINEBACKER - The Plan: Morrow steps in and provides similar production to the departed Kyzir White.
Contingency: If Morrow proves to be an Eric Wilson-like mirage (like a 20-point scorer on a bad NBA team is how one scout described Wilson's impact in Minnesota before signing with the Eagles), spring star Christian Elliss will be the next man up. Elliss is athletic and seems to have a nose for the football but is unproven past special teams. A lesser path could be more so-called big-nickel looks where Terrell Edmunds drops down from safety opposite Dean with rookie Sydney Brown rotating in to pair with Reed Blankenship on the back end.
SAFETIES - The Plan: Because the Eagles’ two safety positions are essentially interchangeable in their Vic Fangio-inspired scheme, we will talk about this as a duo. For Week 1, the goal seems to be Blankenship taking over opposite Edmunds while allowing the No. 66 overall pick Brown some time to ramp up as the potential playmaker on the back end.
Contingency: Throwing Brown into the deep end of the pool and saying sink or swim, a scenario that will only happen if either Blankenship or Edmunds falter badly over the summer.
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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
