Top 25 Eagles Ranked: DT Jordan Davis 'Coming in Hot' at No. 19
PHILADELPHIA - In the NFL, a run-stuffer making it easier for others on defense to do their jobs might be the equivalent of a tree falling in the woods.
Unless you’re standing there, no one is hearing the oak hit the forest’s floor and unless you're the actual edge rusher beating the one-on-one block or the Mike linebacker flowing to the football cleanly, you probably aren’t going to understand Jordan Davis’ impact on the Philadelphia Eagles.
To those at the NovaCare Complex, it would hardly be a surprise that the second-year nose tackle is No. 19 on SI.com’s Eagles Today’s list of top-25 Philadelphia players entering the 2023 season even after a “disappointing” rookie season.
The process behind the top-25 list started with SI.com's Eagles beat reporters Ed Kracz and John McMullen putting together their own top 25 players independent of each other’s rankings and then assigning point values, with 25 points awarded to the player ranked first on each list, 24 to the player ranked second, and so on, with one point going to the player that was put 25th.
The highest ranking from either reporter breaks any ties in the ballot.
So far, the rankings have shaken out this way:
No. 25 - Kenny Gainwell
No. 24 - Nicholas Morrow
No. 23 - Reed Blankenship
No. 22 - Terrell Edmunds
No. 21 - Jack Elliott
The disconnect for the critics with Davis was the high-ankle sprain that cost the then-rookie a month in the 2022 season and an injury that forced Howie Roseman to go outside the organization to find a replacement to help on the nose in the team’s 50 fronts, tapping into proven veteran Linval Joseph.
By the time Davis returned at less than 100 percent the Eagles were in Super Bowl-or-bust mode and decided to ride Joseph the rest of the way with Davis mixing in as he got healthier and healthier.
Davis was actually effective when he played, grading out as No. 26 of the 127 defensive tackles who played enough to be ranked by Pro Football Focus.
The issue is role and statistics. Davis is already a top-tier, two-down player but some are always going to expect more than that from a No. 13 overall pick.
Couple that sentiment with Davis’ athletic gifts and you had a cottage industry of draftniks projecting pass-rushing success down the road with some even projecting Davis moving outside at times.
The folly in that is that the Eagles are so gifted on the edge with Hasson Reddick, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham and now Nolan Smith, Davis' once and again teammate from Georgia, why in the world would you want a novice outside taking away reps from them?
The other and more pertinent issue is conditioning. Georgia has been so talented on the defensive line over the past few years that no player, not 2022 No. 1 overall pick Travon Walker, perhaps the most talented player in the 2023 draft, Eagles’ rookie Jalen Carter, or Davis played more than a handful of snaps in a row in order to keep players trash.
Philadelphia is the closest thing in the NFL to that kind of depth but playing time is ramped up for the best players. Davis played only 270 snaps as a rookie, particularly due to the time missed, and needs to be over 700 at a minimum this season.
"Strength training and conditioning,” Davis said this spring when asked what this offseason was about for him. “Conditioning, most importantly, and working on get-off technique. That was the biggest thing. I watched the film and I just realized a lot of my technique was raw.
“So I wanted to come in and I wanted to come in hot. … I don't wanna be the guy that like falls behind or the guy that the coach has to correct my technique every time but one conditioning for sure and two, maintaining, maintaining and then doing the right thing on the field just doing my technique right, doing the right little things correctly."
The goal with Davis should be Haloti Ngata or Vita Vea with more pass-rushing skill on the interior and Davis took a nice first step toward that end game as a rookie.
It should only get better moving forward.
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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
