{"id":173506,"date":"2025-07-01T17:32:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/173506\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:32:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:32:18","slug":"eagles-defensive-weakness-offers-trade-answers-on-t-j-watt-and-trey-hendrickson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/173506\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles’ Defensive Weakness Offers Trade Answers on T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eagles’ Defensive Weakness Offers Trade Answers on T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the start of the offseason, it took just a couple of weeks for the Philadelphia Eagles to lose several key edge rushers from their Super Bowl roster.<\/p>\n

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Bryce Huff, Brandon Graham, and Josh Sweat have all left the organization for various reasons. Their departures have raised significant concerns for the team’s top-ranked defense.<\/p>\n

But that doesn’t mean Philadelphia’s weakness will be at edge rusher this year.<\/p>\n

On paper – and amid trade speculation regarding big-name NFL contract holdouts T.J. Watt in Pittsburgh<\/a> and Trey Hendrickson in Cincinnati – hey have plenty of stars to make up for some of their losses.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia at this time has a young and energetic group, including third-year edge rusher Nolan Smith, second-year phenom Jalyx Hunt, and their collection of free agent pickups like Josh Uche and Azeez Ojulari.<\/p>\n

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In the case of Smith and Hunt, their development took a massive turn for the better during their playoff run last season. The Georgia product recorded four sacks during Philadelphia’s run to the title. Hunt, meanwhile, recorded 1.5 sacks, including a half-sack in Super Bowl LIX.<\/p>\n

If both Hunt and Smith can find a way to build on their playoff success, the Eagles’ biggest perceived question mark or “weakness” may not be as weak as originally thought.<\/p>\n

Add in Uche and Ojulari, two veterans with a penchant for rushing the passer, and the Eagles’ defensive line could be just as good as they were last season.<\/p>\n

It’s customary with any team for a position group that lost three quality veterans in free agency to take a step back.<\/p>\n

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But Philadelphia has developed a reputation for, well … development.<\/p>\n

A superstar addition (at a price tag of over $30 million APY) would be appealing. But …<\/p>\n

The Super Bowl champs generally seem equipped to move past their offseason losses and now likely believe they have the next-gen players on the roster with the ability to push for a repeat.<\/p>\n

Related: Eagles First-Round Rookie Passes Major Off-Field Test<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Eagles Pro Bowler Speaks Out on Impressive \u2018Draft Steal\u2019 Rookie<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jul 1, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eagles’ Defensive Weakness Offers Trade Answers on T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson originally appeared on Athlon Sports. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[10035,5830,6731,227,25,7,10167,7522,14454,6,12510,242,109,2476,520,5226,425,1503],"class_list":{"0":"post-173506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-azeez-ojulari","9":"tag-brandon-graham","10":"tag-bryce-huff","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-eagles","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-jalyx-hunt","15":"tag-josh-sweat","16":"tag-josh-uche","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nolan-smith","19":"tag-philadelphia","20":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","21":"tag-philadelphiaeagles","22":"tag-pittsburgh","23":"tag-t-j-watt","24":"tag-the-eagles","25":"tag-trey-hendrickson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114779177329364435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}