Vic Fangio Says Eagles' Defensive Depth Faces a Familiar Test in 2025

PHILADELPHIA – Depth was an important part of the Eagles’ Super Bowl success last season. When an injury happened, someone was there to step in, from Fred Johnson filling in for Jordan Mailata at left tackle to Oren Burks stepping in at linebacker during the playoffs for Nakobe Dean.

It was both sides of the ball, but never did the Eagles skip a beat. Will that be the case this year?

“It's too early to say,” said defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who suffered several losses via free agency or, in the case of Brandon Graham, retirement.

He has to replace starters, which will, in some cases require players who part of last year’s depth. The domino effect of that is who becomes the “new” depth.

Fangio told his defensive players that this year is similar to last year. Both years he said involved turnover of personnel from the previous year.

“You had (Zach) Baun, nobody knew what he was at this point last year,” said Fangio. “You had Nakobe (Dean), who hadn't played any meaningful NFL football in his first two years. You had Oren Burks, who we had just signed. You had Isaiah Rodgers, who we had just signed. You had (Moro) Ojomo, who didn't play hardly at all his rookie year.

“We got Nolan (Smith), who didn't play hardly at all his rookie year. We got Chauncey (Gardner-Johnson) back. We drafted Q (Quinyon Mitchell), Cooper (DeJean), and Jalyx (Hunt). We had a lot of question marks at that time.”

It's very similiar to this year, with the names being cornerback Adoree Jackson, safety Sydney Brown, who struggled to get healthy from ACL surgery then had a hard time staying healthy, Tristin McCollum, who started just two games at safety last year, Azeez Ojulair, Joshua Uche, Byron Young, Gabe Hall, Thomas Booker, Jihad Campbell, and draft picks Drew Mukuba, Ty Robinson, and Smael Mondon.

All of them were mentioned by Fangio.

"Some of those guys in that second list have to become like those guys in the first list, and I don't know how that's going to turn out, but I look at us really basically the same one year to the next,” said the DC. “The names have changed. Hopefully, we'll get the same results from these new guys that we got from a lot of the new guys last year.”