The Landon Dickerson injury has been very sobering. The Philadelphia Eagles have one of, if not the best, offensive lines in the NFL. So when news came out that the starting left guard, who has had leg injury problems in the past, messed up his meniscus before the season even started… buddy… not great.
Luckily, he’s having minor surgery to get it cleaned up, and he’s going to be back sooner rather than later, but it made you start to think about the depth of the offensive line. Thinking about going from a Pro-Bowl and potentially All-Pro caliber player to Brett Toth will put a shred of doubt in your mind.
So, for the sake of mental health, preparedness for disappointment, and most importantly, to anti-jinx any future injuries, it’s important to talk about some other positions where the Eagles can’t afford to lose guys.
The shallow parts of the Eagles' depth chart
The Eagles roster is chock-full of stars. Everyone knows Lane Johnson’s value on this team. Per Stat Muse, the Eagles' regular-season record with him is 102-55-1 and without him, it’s 15-23. That’s a winning percentage of 64.9% that drops to 39.5%.
Maybe it’s because I don’t pay nearly as much attention to the records of other teams in the NFL when they are missing their perennial All-Pro offensive linemen, but that seems like that’s probably one of the biggest winning percentage dips for a single player’s absence.
We know that the Eagles were undefeated last season when both Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown were playing. We know that Jalen Carter plays just about 90% of the defensive snaps and makes an impact on every single one of them.
We’re not going to focus on those guys. We’re going to focus on the areas where they’re not as deep. Luckily, there’s a pretty good amount of depth at spots, and they can withstand losing a guy for a week or two. They have linebackers out the wazoo, well-tested tight ends, good rotational defensive linemen, a handful of wide receivers, and a bunch of safeties who can play.
Offensive line:
The Eagles have had injuries on the offensive line in the past, and they’ve had a guy come in and play really well. Last season, Jordan Mailata was hurt from Weeks 7 to 12, and Fred Johnson filled in well for him. In that stretch of games, Mekhi Becton got a concussion, and Tyler Steen filled in for him.
Steen is the new starting right guard, and Johnson signed with the Jaguars in free agency. Simply put, the depth on the offensive line is now kind of an issue because they’re relatively untested. The biggest potential problem would be if Cam Jurgens goes down while Landon Dickerson is out.
Last postseason, when Jurgens went out with a messed-up back, Dickerson slid over from left guard, and he did really good. Without Dickerson, you’re looking at either Brett Toth or Drew Kendall as the backup center.
With Toth, it’d bring up a whole new slew of problems, because it's looking like he’s going to take over as the starting left guard while Dickerson is out. That means he would have to slide over to center, and there’d be two backup offensive linemen playing right next to each other… on top of that, Toth has had issues snapping the ball in the past. As for Drew Kendall, he’s a fifth-round rookie.
It’s not great when you start peeling back the layers, especially when broken offensive lines have been a relatively recent reason this team’s had seasons that you’d pay to forget. The comforting part is that Jeff Stoutland is the best offensive line coach in the NFL, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Cornerback:
It’s going to be terrible if Quinyon Mitchell ever gets hurt. He left after nine snaps in the divisional round last against the Rams, which meant Isaiah Rodgers was the next man up. Per NFL Pro, he ended up getting targeted 10 times and gave up 106 yards. That’s not great.
We’re currently watching a battle between Kelee Ringo, Adoree’ Jackson, and maybe Jakorian Bennett and Mac McWilliams for the CB2 job. One of them will win the job, and the guy who loses will fill in for Mitchell. That’s a big drop off.
Edge:
The depth at center and CB1 is about potential liabilities. The depth at Edge is more about missing out on potential production.
Nolan Smith had a great 2024 season, and Jalyx Hunt came on strong in the last third of the season. So during the offseason, Howie Roseman showed his confidence in them by not signing a big name.
Instead, he threw some darts by signing a handful of cheap guys: Josh Uche, Azeez Ojulari, Ogbo Okoronkwo, and Patrick Johnson. Will any of them guys be good? Yeah, probably… but there’s a really good chance that they aren’t last year’s Zack Baun, where he had a breakout season, the likes of which we’ve never seen.
They’re not exactly dudes that you trust to consistently get after the quarterback or stop a run. They can build that trust, but as of right now, it’s a big ‘cross your fingers and hope for the best’ situation.
Also, Azeez Ojulari has had a whole gang of injuries and hasn’t played a full season since his rookie year in 2021. Hopefully most of those happened simply because the aura of failure surrounding the New York Giants rubbed off on him. Hopefully he came to the Eagles not just because he needed a new change of scenery, but also because MetLife Stadium was sucking the life out of him.