Defense, Jalen Hurts declared Tuesday, wins championships. He wasn’t the first to make that observation, but he is the most recent NFL quarterback to benefit from the work performed by his teammates as he watched from the sidelines.
In a remarkable one-year transformation, the Eagles’ defense went from 30th in points allowed to second and from 26th in yards allowed to first. There were multiple reasons why, starting with the free-agent addition of Zack Baun, the draft selections of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean and the strategic brilliance of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
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There were multiple draft classes that played a role. In addition to Mitchell and DeJean, third-round pick Jalyx Hunt also represented the class of 2024 by becoming an integral part of the pass-rushing rotation following Brandon Graham’s Week 12 shoulder injury against the Rams.
From the class of 2022, Nakobe Dean stepped up and remained healthy through the regular season, playing linebacker at the same high level as Baun. Jordan Davis, the first-round pick from the ’22 draft, had a decrease in reps in his third season at defensive tackle, but played his best football during the postseason.
Milton Williams was a fine representative of the class of 2021, but he’s up in New England now after receiving a set-for-life contract from the Patriots. The Class of 2018’s valedictorian was Josh Sweat, but he, too, got a big deal and reunited with former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon in the desert.
It could be argued, however, that the class of 2023 was the most instrumental in turning the Eagles’ defense into a dominant force last season.
Start with the fact that Jalen Carter, the ninth overall pick in 2023, was the team’s best defensive player, a second-team All Pro and a first-time Pro Bowler. Yes, Baun was a first-team All Pro and finished fifth in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, but he’d be the first to tell you that what Carter does up front frees him to make plays.
The Class of 2023 also gave us Nolan Smith, who went from averaging 27.2 snaps per game in the first 11 games when Graham was healthy to 45.2 snaps per game in the Eagles’ final nine games. That number was actually 53.5 in the eight games before the Super Bowl, but like all the defensive starters he got to celebrate on the sidelines late in the game because it was such a rout.
During his increased time on the field late in the season, he contributed seven sacks and eight tackles for loss after compiling just four sacks and five tackles for a loss in his first 28 games.
Add in defensive tackle Moro Ojomo’s work as part of the defensive tackle rotation and the class of 2023 really can lay claim to being the biggest reason the defense dominated last season.
That point can at least be argued. This one can’t: The key to the Eagles remaining a dominant defense in 2025 belong to the class of 2023.
Carter, 24, needs to become even more of a force in the middle, which seems entirely possible. Smith, 24, has gone from being the No. 4 guy in the pass-rushing rotation at the start of last season to the top dog in 2025.
Ojomo, a seventh-round pick who doesn’t turn 24 until August, played the same amount of defensive snaps (388) as Davis last season and he contributed a sack and two tackles for a loss during the postseason. His 39 pressures ranked fifth on the team. Fangio will want more from him in 2025.
Safety Sydney Brown, a third-round pick in 2023, and cornerback Kelee Ringo, a fourth-round pick that year, only played a combined 191 snaps in 2024, but they were both major contributors on special teams. Ringo led the team with 340 special-teams snaps and Brown was one of nine Eagles that played at least 200 snaps on special teams.
Now, those two have an opportunity to compete for starting jobs in training camp for the first time in their careers.
The Eagles will open up practice to the media for the first time this offseason next week and it will be interesting to see who is lining up with the first-team defense. Nothing will be etched in stone and competitions can last into the season.
Bryce Huff, for example, started five of the first seven games a year ago and wasn’t even active for the Super Bowl.
But it was at the OTAs last year that we first saw Baun run with the first-team defense. He ran so well with that opportunity that he became a first-team All Pro selection and a Super Bowl champion.
Brown will likely have to fight with rookie second-round pick Drew Mukuba (and others) for the starting safety job and Ringo could be competing with rookie fifth-round pick Mac McWilliams for a starting cornerback job opposite Mitchell.
Should Brown and Ringo win those jobs, the Eagles will quite often have five players on the field playing defense from the draft class of 2023, which matches the number of players they’ll have from Georgia on any given play.
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Bob Brookover can be reached atrbrookover@njadvancemedia.com