2 Eagles who will exceed expectations in 2024, 2 who won't

Setting reasonable expectations for the Philadelphia Eagles is tough this year because there are so many things to be absolutely stoked about. Saquon Barkley is going to be wearing Midnight Green. C.J. Gardner-Johnson is back. Jalen Carter isn’t a rookie. Nick Sirianni isn’t running the offense. A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith have cemented themselves as the best wide receiver duo in the NFL. The schedule is comparable to the 2022 schedule. There are so many awesome things coming together.

The problem is that every single time expectations are high, we get our hearts ripped out. If you want to set expectations high, more power to you, that’s great, but some of us have to be responsible so that we don’t ruin everything for everyone for the next five months.

Not every star player is going to have their best season, and some players are going to blow our socks off. It happens every year and it’ll happen this year too.

Young players will have a lot on their plate, some will be able to eat it and some won’t

All of these players are on the defense because the question mark surrounding the Eagles' defense dwarfs any questions around the offense. The expectations for A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Saquon Barkley are that they will all be great. They’re going to be great; It’s undeniable that they’ll meet those expectations. Defensively? That’s up in the air.

Jalen Carter and the rise to superstardom

There’s a very good chance that Jalen Carter is actually underrated. There’s a lot of talk about how he’s going to have a great year this year as long as he has good conditioning, but that’s underselling it. 

Jalen Carter will have a phenomenal year. This is a guy who destroys everything in front of him. Did he fall off last season? Yes, of course, but so did everyone else on the team. What’s different about Jalen Carter is that he was a rookie last year and had to get acclimated to an NFL season.

We know defensive linemen from Georgia don’t play that many snaps in college because they have a thousand guys that rotate at that position, so it made sense that he was going to hit a wall. That’s gone now. Jalen Carter is going to have the opportunity to explode in Vic Fangio’s defense. He’s going to play a whole lot more than ever he has in the past, and with those extra reps, he’ll have a chance to show what he really is. 

It could start as early as Week 1. The Packers’ biggest weakness on offense is the combination of their center Josh Myers and their right guard Sean Rhyan. There shouldn’t be anything stopping Fangio from spamming the ‘turn Jalen Carter into a M1 Abrams’ button.

Nakobe Dean and the playing-time problem

Nakobe Dean was drafted in the third round of the 2022 draft. Since then he essentially had a red-shirt year while he sat behind Kyzir White and T.J. Edwards and then he couldn’t stay healthy in 2023 where he only played in five games.

You can’t blame a guy for getting injured, especially when that happens twice in one season and both of those injuries happened to his feet. Having injuries on each foot that probably coincided for a little while must be a type of hell that few people have endured. That being said, you can’t make the club from the tub.

The reality of the situation is that this year the Eagles actually put resources into their linebacker room. It wasn’t much (like, at all) but at least it was something. Nakobe Dean now has to compete against Zack Baun, Devin White, Jeremiah Trotter Jr., Ben Vansummeren, and Oren Burks to hold a starting spot.

Now that we know Devin White isn’t traveling to Brazil for the Week 1 game, it means Dean will be a starting linebacker, and he’s going to get tested both early and often.

The Eagles have shored up the perimeters of the defense through free agency and the draft, leaving the middle of the field as an easy weak spot. If the Packers’ offense continues to be as smart as it has been, Nakobe is going to get targeted... A lot.

If he doesn’t hold up, and based on what we’ve seen from him there’s no real reason to think that he will, Fangio could easily lose trust in him and sub in one of the other linebackers waiting in the wing. 

There’s a good chance that Nakobe Dean won’t get the opportunity to surpass, let alone meet, the low expectations that are set for him. The same could be said about every linebacker though. We’re just focusing on Dean here because he was the ‘prince who was promised’ until Trotter Jr. walked through the door.

Sydney Brown and the low-key comeback

Sydney Brown is awesome; he flies around and smashes people with reckless abandon. He plays raw football and it’s everything that you want to see out of a defensive back. Unfortunately, his rookie season was cut short due to a brutal ACL tear in a meaningless game on MetLife’s field in Week 18, because of course that cursed artificial turf had to take yet another casualty before the season ended.

He’s currently on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list which means he will be out for four weeks. Luckily, the Eagles’ bye week is in Week 5, which means Brown has a good chance of returning for the Week 6 game against the Browns.

There’s a difference between performing and playing, so it’ll probably take him a handful of weeks before he gets back to performing and when he does, it’ll be somewhere around Week 10 at Dallas, Week 11 against Washinton, or Week 12 (Thanksgiving week) at Los Angeles. 

If a player is going to be limited to five to eight weeks' worth of playing at full strength, that means his expectations are low. 

Sydney will be coming back like Gandalf during the Battle of Helm’s Deep. You might think he’ll be a guy standing alone, but when he hits, it’ll be with the force of 2,000 horses and it will come at just the right time. In a couple of years, a Sydney Brown jersey will be on your birthday list.

Nolan Smith and the detrimental draft stock

When a player is drafted in the first round, you expect a lot. Jalen Carter crushed it in a position where early success was hard to achieve. Nolan Smith did not and in a huge way.

The Eagles' pass rush was a broken wheelchair for the problematic part of 2023 and Nolan Smith still couldn’t find his way on the field. That’s an objectively bad thing. Then, in the 2024 preseason, he played a whole lot of snaps, notably in the third game. That’s also an objectively bad thing.

The Eagles (and Nolan himself) can tell you that those preseason snaps are good because he needs experience and playing time. That might be true, but valuable players don’t play in the third preseason game. You can do that math there.

By no means is it Nolan’s fault that he has high expectations. He was an important piece of the best defense in college football history and he was drafted as such. It’s just that in this situation, he has to be able to play at a high level. That hasn’t been the case.

We haven’t seen Fangio’s plan yet, but after Josh Sweat and Bryce Huff, Nolan Smith SHOULD be next in rotation ahead of Brandon Graham (who had the most impactful play in the most important game in franchise history when he strip-sacked Tom Brady in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LII) and Jalyx Hunt. 

For Smith to meet or exceed his expectations (again, based purely on draft stock) he should be challenging Sweat for a starting spot at some point in the season, and it just doesn't seem like that will be in the cards. It sucks because Nolan seems like a super likable guy and it would be easy for everyone to rally around him.

It kind of stinks that there’s this kind of volatility in the Eagles defense. A great interior defensive line with Jalen Carter can be great but edge rushers like Nolan Smith are the most important piece on the defense. Having safeties who fly around and crave contact like Sydney Brown is sick but linebackers like Nakobe Dean who are only effective against the run and not the pass is detrimental. 

Fortunately, Vic Fangio is the kind of hard-nosed coach who can make up for spotty weaknesses and if it comes down to the trade deadline, he’ll summon that inner curmudgeon and hopefully make some necessary demands.