The Eagles relied on a bunch of young players last year and had the best defense in the NFL.
Can they do it again in 2025?
They’re probably going to need to. This offseason, the Eagles lost several key veterans on the defensive side like Darius Slay, Josh Sweat, Milton Williams, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Brandon Graham. It’s likely going to take a lot of young players to replace them.
While head coach Nick Sirianni always gives credit to his players first, he knows it’s twofold. It takes good young players who are willing to improve, but it also takes coaches who are able to develop their talent. The Eagles had both in 2024.
“We do feel like we have a good infrastructure with different developmental periods we have, with the coaches that we have, to be able to develop them,” Sirianni said.
“Our job as coaches is to, one, put them in positions to succeed. But the other is to get them better fundamentally. Because when they get better fundamentally, now their talent really shines. Your talent really shines when you’re playing better fundamentally. Whether it’s Bobby King teaching block destruction on an everyday basis and it really shows up on tape. Or Christian Parker really teaching how to take the football away. Or Jemal Singleton how to protect the football. Anything like that.
“Obviously, the players that we had playing as young players last year, played phenomenal. And our coaches did a really good job of developing the guys to play phenomenal. So obviously a little bit of both.”
When you think back to the 2024 Super Bowl season, the only reason the defense was so good was because just about every young player on defense got better as the season went on — at every level. The defensive tackles got better under Clint Hurtt, the edge rushers got better under Jeremiah Washburn, the linebackers got better under King and the defensive backs got better under Parker. And everyone got better under the tutelage of Fangio. That whole staff is back in 2025.
Because of that, the Eagles are well-positioned to sustain success with the current roster. They have some young players on offense but are much younger on defense.
Based on projected lineups, the average age of their offensive starters in 2025 is 27.6 years old, while the average age of their defensive starters is just 23.9 years old. The Eagles’ oldest projected starter on defense is 28-year-old Zack Baun, who had his first year as a starting linebacker in 2025. Eight of their 11 projected starters are 24 or younger.
Here’s a full look at the Eagles’ projected defensive starters — or at least who I used for that average:
OLB Nolan Smith: 24
DT Jordan Davis: 25
DT Jalen Carter: 24
OLB Jalyx Hunt: 24
LB Jihaad Campbell: 21
LB Zack Baun: 28
NCB Cooper DeJean: 22
CB Quinyon Mitchell: 24
CB Kelee Ringo: 23
S Reed Blankenship: 26
S Drew Mukuba: 22
It’s very possible (likely, even?) the Eagles will have two rookies — Campbell and Mukuba — in their starting lineup in 2025. Even if that isn’t the case from Week 1, it could very well be the case by the middle of the season.
Campbell, Mukuba, Ringo and other younger players will first need to earn those jobs. That was a point Sirianni made in the spring.
“The best guys will play and the guys that give us the best chance to win will play,” Sirianni said. “It happened to be that the young guys were the guys last year. We’re excited about the young group of guys that we have in this year. But they’re going to have to go out … to say to a guy, ‘Hey, you have this job because you’re young.’ We’re not doing what’s best for the team. And now you’re saying to a guy, ‘Hey, go compete your butt off to win your job.’ That’s what’s best for the football team.
“That competition will bring everybody up and make everybody better, not just in that competition but if two guys are competing at this spot, let’s say corner, those guys are naturally going to make A.J. (Brown) and DeVonta (Smith) and Jahan (Dotson) better because they’re working their butts off even more so because they’re working in that competition mode. We owe it to play our best guys and sometimes young guys win and sometimes veterans win. But I always owe it to the team to play the best guys. I think we all think that way.”
Sure, the Eagles owe it to their players and themselves to let these competitions play out. But if they’re too close to call, these jobs should go to the younger players with room to develop. That’s the way the Eagles’ whole offseason has trended and based on last season, those rookies and second-year players are going to be much better in January than they are in September.
Can the Eagles get significant contributions from a ton of young players again in 2025? Absolutely. And their defense is going to depend on it.