Facts:
1) Fifteen individual edge rushers league-wide have more sacks than all the Eagles’ edge rushers combined.
2) The Eagles have more sacks from edge rushers no longer with the team (2 ½) than still on the team (2.0).
3) The Eagles’ 4 ½ total sacks from edge rushers are fewest of any team in the NFL this year.
Making life miserable for opposing quarterbacks was a huge issue for the Eagles the first half of the season. They do have eight sacks from their interior linemen – Moro Ojomo has four, Jordan Davis three and Jalen Carter one – three from linebacker Zack Baun and a half from safety Andrew Mukuba.
But overall they’re 24th in the NFL with a sack on 6 percent of opposing dropbacks and until they picked up five sacks against the Giants a week ago Sunday – only one by an edge – they had gone a club-record 12 straight games with two or fewer sacks.
Help is on the way.
When the Eagles come out of the bye week against the Packers Monday night at Lambeau, they should have three major additions – all one-time 1st-round picks – to the edge rotation.
Nolan Smith, who was so good at the end of last year with 10 ½ sacks in his last 16 games, is expected back after missing five games with a pec injury. Smith set a franchise record last year with 4.0 playoff sacks, the 2nd-most ever by a player 23 or younger in a single postseason.
Ageless Brandon Graham, who rejoined the team after the Vikings win, is expected to play Monday night in Green Bay after missing the first eight games of the season. Graham is third in Eagles history with 82 sacks including postseason and had 3 ½ sacks, 11 pressures and seven QB hits as a part-time player last year.
And Jaelan Phillips is expected to make his Eagles debut after being acquired from the Dolphins Monday for a 3rd-round pick. Phillips, just 26, had 22 sacks in 42 games from 2021 through 2023 and had three in his last five games in Miami.
They’ll join Jalyx Hunt and Josh Uche in a completely revamped edge rotation.
“Yeah, our best teams, we’ve been fortunate to be in three Super Bowls over the last eight years, and they’ve been led by our front,” Howie Roseman said Tuesday. “You can never have enough pass rushers, you can never have enough cover corners, and they’re hard to find.
“When you talk about that room, excited about all those guys. When you can rotate those guys and you can keep them fresh, especially with the talent that you’re talking about that those guys possess, it just opens up all the possibilities to really be a dominant defensive front when you combine our interior defensive line with them as well.”
Za’Darius Smith still leads all Eagles edge rushers with 1 ½ sacks and he retired three weeks ago. Patrick Johnson picked up his sack in the first Giants game but was released on Tuesday.
The only other sacks the Eagles have this year from edge rushers are one apiece from Hunt against the Vikings and Uche in the second Giants game.
Last time the Eagles got two sacks in a game from their edge rushers was the win over the Steelers in Week 15 last year, when Smith and Josh Sweat had sacks. That was 12 games ago.
The Eagles may bring Smith along slowly after a long layoff, but once everybody is healthy expect to see Smith, Hunt and Phillips splitting reps fairly evenly, with Graham getting maybe a dozen a game and Uche next if anything is left over.
Azeez Ojulari and Ogbo Okoronkwo, both on Injured Reserve, don’t figure to have a role moving forward unless there are more injuries along the edge.
“Obviously, it’s got to come together on the field, but feel like we’ve got a really good front, and obviously adding Jaelan to that puts a lot of pieces in place to give us the opportunity to be dominant upfront,” Roseman said.
“Getting another player who can get pressure on the quarterback in key situations, those guys are always going to be paramount to our success.”