The greatest truth about the Eagles’ defensive performance last season was that nobody saw it coming.
Even the architect, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, admitted a few weeks ago that there were a lot of question marks about the unit he put together when the team arrived at training camp.
The Eagles had finished 30th in points allowed, 26th in yards allowed and had the second worst pass defense in the NFL in 2023. By the end of the season they were even worse than those awful numbers indicated as they allowed 404.4 yards and 29 points per game over their final 11 games.
Fangio, with the help of a massive makeover, fixed the leaks and the Eagles allowed the fewest yards and second fewest points in the league while also becoming the best pass defense.
The Eagles have undergone some more significant changes on defense this offseason with three starters — cornerback Darius Slay, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and edge rusher Josh Sweat — all going elsewhere. They also lost defensive tackle Milton Williams, a major contributor who had five sacks and played a career-high 48% of the team’s defensive snaps, to free agency. And, finally, Brandon Graham retired as a franchise legend after 15 seasons.
During the team’s offseason workouts earlier this month, Fangio compared what he’s going through this year to last year, concluding that “the names have changed (so) hopefully we’ll get the same results from these new guys that we got from a lot of the new guys last year."
Based on its rankings at every defensive position, Pro Football Focus appears at least a little skeptical that the Eagles will be able to repeat the dominating defensive performance that carried them to a Super Bowl title last season. The web site issued grades at interior defender, edge rusher, linebacker, cornerback and safety and only two Eagles ranked among the top 10.
A few days ago we examined PFF’s offensive rankings list, which included seven Eagles among the top 10 and six among the top five.
The Eagles’ highest ranked defensive player was linebacker Zack Baun, who was listed at No. 2 behind San Francisco’s Fred Warner.
The other player ranked among the top 10 was Jalen Carter, who was fifth among interior defenders. Kansas City’s Chris Jones, the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence, Pittsburgh’s Cam Heyward and the Jets’ Quinnen Williams were ranked ahead of Carter.
The two most notable players missing from the top 10 were cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. They both played integral roles in the Eagles’ defensive rise last season and were graded among the top 10 last season by PFF.
DeJean, in fact, finished the season as PFF’s top-rated cornerback with a grade of 86.3, which was the second highest grade for any defensive rookie last season. PFF placed DeJean at No. 11 in its preseason 2025 rankings, but was extremely complimentary of his rookie performance, noting that DeJean “did not allow a touchdown on 97 targets.”
Mitchell was listed at No. 16 on the PFF cornerback list after finishing last season at No. 9 among all cornerbacks with a grade of 78.2. Again, the web site acknowledged Mitchell’s terrific season and potential while adding this remark: “Don’t be surprised if Mitchell contends for a top-five spot a year from now, as he finished the 2024 season with 15 forced incompletions (third most in the league).”
The other Eagles’ player who was among the best at his position last season according to PFF but did not make the web site’s preseason top 10 was linebacker Nakobe Dean. With a grade of 77.4, Dean was 11th in PFF’s final 2024 rankings, but he was not listed among the site’s top 32 linebackers for 2025.
His omission was likely based on the knee injury that knocked him out of the Eagles’ final three playoff games and could keep him from starting the season on time.
Here are some other interesting findings from PFF’s defensive positional rankings:
The Eagles were one of eight teams with two players among the top five in the positional rankings. The others were Kansas City, Pittsburgh, the Jets, San Francisco, Detroit, Baltimore and Denver.
Slay, now with Pittsburgh, was listed as No. 21 at cornerback after finishing last year at No. 23 with a 73.3 grade that was his highest since 2021.
Detroit had five players among the top 10 defenders and Baltimore had four.
The Eagles’ eight combined top five players on offense and defense was four more than any other team. Baltimore was second with six. The Eagles and Baltimore both had nine players among the top 10 on both sides of the ball.
Eagles safety Reed Blankenship was listed at 15th after finishing 29th in the PFF rankings at the end of last year with a 69.5 grade.
Gardner-Johnson, traded from the Eagles to Houston, was ranked 13th after finishing with 14th last season with a career-high PFF grade of 77.0.
Sweat, who signed with Arizona, was ranked 25th at edge rusher after finishing 36th last season with a 70.0 grade.
Eagles edge rusher Nolan Smith was ranked 28th after finishing at No. 27 with a 73.9 grade last year.
The Giants didn’t have any players among the top 10 in the PFF offensive rankings, but they had three among the top 10 on defense. Besides Lawrence being No. 2 at interior defender, they were also represented by linebacker Bobby Okereke at No. 6 and free-agent safety addition Jevon Holland at No. 10. Former Giants safety Xavier McKinney, now with Green Bay, was ranked No. 2 at safety. Another former Giant, Julian Love, now with Seattle, was ranked 11th at safety.
Washington’s lone top 10 player on defense was veteran linebacker Bobby Wagner at No. 3 and Dallas’ lone top 10 player was edge rusher Micah Parsons at No. 2.
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Bob Brookover can be reached atrbrookover@njadvancemedia.com