Predicting the Eagles' defense: Depth chart shakeups begin at OTAs

The Philadelphia Eagles are returning 10 of their 11 starters on offense, and there’s only one battle for a starting position on that side of the ball. But the story is a little different on defense.

The Eagles lost a handful of key players to free agency and a linebacker to a late-season injury. That means there are a few starting jobs that need to get filled. The sooner those jobs get filled, the more reps those guys get in training camp and the better the defense is from the jump. OTAs are a perfect time for some of these dudes to stake an early claim for their jobs.

Bryce Huff is someone else’s problem now

It’s good that the Eagles have a very good core of very young players on defense. It makes filling out that side of the 53-man roster easy, for the most part. Unfortunately, in the few areas where there are some holes, it gets a little bit foggy. 

Aside from the three special teamers, I predicted that there would be 26 players on offense. That leaves these 24 guys to fill out the rest of the Eagles 53-man roster … maybe. It’s still May, after all.

Defensive line: 

I’m lumping in edge rushers with the defensive tackles here. The Eagles lost Milton Williams and added rookie Ty Robinson, so it’s probably going to be a rotation of Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis Moro Ojomo, Thomas Booker IV and Robinson. That’s easy.

The difficulty comes with the edge guys. We know it’s going to be Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt, but after that … woof. Seven guys are fighting for the other spots.

I went with Ojulari, Patrick Johnson and Josh Uche as the next three options. Ojulari and Uche have had good production in the past, but it hasn’t been sticky; Ojulari’s needs to shake the injury bug, and Uche had just one good season in 2022. 

With Bryce Huff reportedly getting traded to the 49ers, it opens up a spot for Patrick Johnson. Although to be fair, Johnson might’ve beaten Huff for that spot anyway.

I listed five edge rushers, but I think that Jihaad Campbell is going to have some pass-rushing juice as an off-ball linebacker, and could possibly rotate in with them. The other thing to consider is that Howie Roseman could end up trading for a veteran edge rusher later in the offseason, and this whole picture could change pretty quickly. 

Linebacker:

This is another easy one. There are currently seven linebackers on the Eagles roster: Zack Baun, Nakobe Dean, Jihaan Campbell, Smael Mondon Jr., Jeremiah Trotter Jr., Lance Dixon and Dallas Gant.

Dean is going to start the season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list. Baun rocks. The Eagles drafted Campbell in the first round. Trotter Jr. is coming off a rookie season where he was buried on the depth chart behind awesome players (kind of like Dean in 2022), and he’ll probably grow into a usable role this season. Rookie Mondon is a fifth-round pick from Georgia, and the Eagles aren’t in the business of tossing Georgia players to the wayside.

Dixon and Gant are both UDFAs from Toledo, Gant in 2024 and Dixon this year. The linebacker room is set up to be stronger this season than it was last season, and it was really strong last season. It doesn’t seem like there’s a possibility (injuries aside) where either of those two guys makes the 53.

Cornerback:

It seems like this offseason is going to be all about Kelee Ringo and whether or not he can win the other cornerback job opposite Quinyon Mitchell. If he can, then perfect. If not, then it’ll be Cooper DeJean (who you would rather have playing nickel, where he's already a star), Adoree’ Jackson or rookie Mac McWilliams.

The Jackson of it all is the hardest decision here. He was a bad cornerback on a bad Giants defense last year. Maybe new scenery will help him out, but he’s entering his age-30 season, his ninth in the NFL. It feels like we know exactly what Jackson is at this point; he’s got the makings for one of those veterans that a team signs in free agency but who doesn’t end up making the team at all. That being said, I like his chances to make the final roster over Tariq Castro-Fields, Parry Nickerson and Eli Ricks. 

It feels like the Ricks experiment might be coming to an end. Last season, he only had 14 defensive snaps: three at the end of the Week 17 game against the Cowboys and 11 in the Week 18 game against the Giants. On top of that, his special-teams snaps went way down, too. He went from 212 in 2023 to just 51 in 2024.

All this means that if he’s not showing any value on defense or special teams, he’s one of those guys looking to be on the wrong side of the roster bubble. 

Safety: 

We don’t know who will start next to Reed Blankenship, but we know who will be in the running for it: Sydney Brown, Drew Mukuba, Tristan McCollum, Lewis Cine, Maxen Hook and Andre’ Sam. Unfortunately, the Eagles aren’t going to keep all of those guys. I think it’s going to come down to Hook and Sam as the two who will get cut.

Brown, Mukuba and Cine all have some serious draft pedigree to their names. The Eagles drafted Brown and Mukuba in the third and second rounds of the last two drafts, and Cine was the Vikings’ first-round pick in 2022.

McCollum is the tough one here; he could either be second on the depth chart, or not on it at all. The Eagles trusted him to play over Sydney Brown last season, but it’s hard to tell why. When McCollum was on the field, he wasn’t great. Maybe another offseason with the Fangio scheme could help him, but it’s hard to say. 

Brown was coming off an ACL injury which might have hampered him all season, or he might just not be a good fit for Fangio’s scheme.  Honestly, I put him on the roster because I’m biased; I love the way he plays football. It’s so much fun to watch.

Cine’s only played a whopping 10 defensive snaps in his three-year career, so there’s a really good chance that he might just be an all-time stinker. On the other hand, the Eagles purposefully grabbed him off the Bills’ practice squad in the postseason last year, then kept him on the 53-man roster so other teams couldn’t grab him.

Maybe that was because of Roseman’s insatiable thirst for Georgia Bulldogs, or maybe it wa- Fangio seeing a safety who can be helpful in the future. Regardless, the Eagles thought enough of him to use one of their 53 roster spots on a Super Bowl-winning team. That’s not nothing. 

I have Hook making the roster over Sam. The only time Sam got snaps last season was in Week 14 when Blankenship was out with a concussion and Brown was out with a knee. Even then, he only played special teams. 

Hook is a UDFA from Toledo who’s got decent upside at safety, but he can probably start right away on special teams. Aside from that, there would be something poetic about another one of the Eagles safeties being an undrafted guy who played with Quinyon Mitchell.

All in all, this is my OTA version of the Eagles' 53-man roster: