Every year after the draft, there are players on every team’s roster who get to take a sigh of relief, and another group of guys who have to splash some cold water in their face and say, "Alright, I guess it’s go time." The cold water group means there will be a training camp battle for the spot, and that’s exactly what you want. That’s going to be happening a lot on the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense this summer.
Hot seat: Guys who didn’t start on defense last season
The Eagles picked up 10 guys in the 2025 draft: six on defense and four on offense. Realistically, five of the six defensive guys will compete for a starting or rotational spot on the roster, and one of the offensive guys will compete for a backup spot.
That means that there are going to be guys who were on the best roster in the NFL last season who are at risk of losing their jobs to a rookie. That’s the reality of the situation. It’s good for the team, and it’ll be tough for the loser of the positional battles. Them’s the breaks.
Dorian Thompson-Robinson, QB3
We’re going to start with a guy who wasn’t on the roster last season, but got picked up in the ‘Kenny Pickett to the Browns’ trade. This is pretty cut-and-dry: Dorian Thompson-Robinson is not a good quarterback, and it’ll be easy for Kyle McCord (sixth-rounder from Syracuse) to take the QB3 job.
Some people have said McCord could challenge Tanner McKee for the QB2 spot, but that’s nonsense. McKee is one of the 32 best quarterbacks in the NFL right now, but he just happens to be behind the reigning Super Bowl MVP on the Eagles' depth chart. I think that there's a much better chance that McCord ends up taking the QB2 job only if/when the Eagles trade McKee away.
Any of the three guys at safety
In the second round of the draft, the Eagles picked Andrew Mukuba, the safety from Texas. If the Eagles draft a guy in the second round, he’s going to end up being good.
For context, seven of the Eagles' last 10 second-round picks have ended up being key, or franchise, players (you could argue that it’s eight players depending on your opinion of Jordan Matthews). That includes the previous six second-round picks.
The guys on the hot seat are Sydney Brown, Tristin McCollum, and Lewis Cine. Now, chances are that at least two of those guys will make it onto the 53-man roster, but there is currently a four-man race for a starting spot.
It feels like Sydney Brown should be the front runner for the job. The Eagles drafted him with the third pick in the third round of the 2023 draft. They clearly like the guy.
Unfortunately, he was a no-show last year. Maybe it was because he was still rehabbing the ACL that he tore at the end of the 2023 season, or maybe it’s just because he’s not a good fit in the Fangio defense. Sean Desai was the defensive coordinator when he was drafted, not Fangio.
Thomas Booker IV, defensive tackle rotation
I’m going to assume that since Milton Williams left in free agency, everyone on the defensive line is going to slide up one spot. That means Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis/Moro Ojomo would start, and Thomas Booker would be the guy to rotate in.
It normally takes a few years for defensive tackles to hit their stride in the NFL (Jalen Carter is the obvious exception). The Eagles’ fourth-round pick, Ty Robinson, probably isn’t going to come right in and take the starting or second spot in the defensive line rotation. That means he’s going to be fighting for the third spot that’s being held by Booker (previously held by Ojomo).
Per Next Gen Stats, Ojomo played 461 defensive snaps (36.3%) last season, so it is a decent chunk of playing time that we’re looking at here. A thing that’s working for Robinson in this spot is that he played at Nebraska for six years, so it’s not like he’s coming into the NFL young and needing to build up his body.
He’s spent the last six years in a Midwest college’s weight room, eating his peanut butter and syrup sandwiches. Normally, being a 23-year-old rookie isn’t a great thing, but in this case, it might be.
Nakobe Dean and Jeremiah Trotter Jr., linebackers
If Jihaad Campbell gets healthy before training camp, he should easily take over the second starting linebacker spot. That means there will be a competition for the backup role between Smael Mondon Jr. (fifth-rounder from Georgia) and Jeremiah Trotter Jr.
That will be a pretty interesting competition because both of these guys are/will be useful on special teams as well, so it’s not like either one has a leg up on the other, usefulness-wise.
Now, the Nakobe Dean of this all is where it’s kind of tough. He was so awesome last year until his season ended in the wild-card round of the playoffs with a torn patellar tendon. That’s not necessarily a career ender, but it’s a tough one to come back from, and if/when he does come back from it, we don’t know how much it’s going to affect him.
The problem here is that he’ll be a free agent after this season. If the Eagles have another season of lights-out linebacker play, it’ll probably be very, very hard for Howie Roseman to justify re-signing Dean.
On the other hand, maybe he’ll be cheap because other teams might pass over a guy who has only had one full healthy season. Cross your fingers that the linebacker-needy teams next offseason are dumb.