10 Eagles on defense to watch in 2023 training camp

With Eagles training camp starting next week, it’s officially football season.

The Eagles report to training camp next Tuesday with the first practice of the summer scheduled for the following day.

Every year, I go into training camp with a list of players I want to watch extra carefully. That doesn’t necessarily mean the best or most important players, but the players with some added intrigue for various reasons.

Yesterday, I looked at 10 offensive players to watch in training camp.

Here are 10 defensive players to watch this summer:

S Sydney Brown

The Eagles used their second of back-to-back picks in the third round to take Brown out of Illinois and they’ve been talking him up ever since. The night the Eagles drafted Brown, Eagles GM Howie Roseman said Brown was a red star player, meaning he embodied what it means to be an Eagle. There are a bunch of folks in the NovaCare Complex who are extremely excited about Brown. And the Eagles think he’s more than just a box safety. They saw him play in the post at the Senior Bowl and think he can be a versatile safety at the next level.

Roseman thinks Brown will turn into a fan favorite because of his play style and that’s hard to argue watching him play at Illinois. He’ll immediately get tossed into a competition in Philly, where both safeties from 2022 are gone. Reed Blankenship and Terrell Edmunds were lining up as the starters in OTAs but we’ll see if Brown can compete for a job at some point in his rookie season.

DT Jalen Carter

It probably goes without saying that we want to watch the No. 9 pick in the draft. But it’s not just that Carter was the No. 9 pick, it’s that he might have been the best overall player in this entire class. We know Carter dropped in part because of some off-field concerns but the Eagles did their homework and obviously felt comfortable. And if you watched Carter at Georgia, you know how much upside he has. On a back-to-back National Championship team, Carter was arguably the best player.

With the Eagles, Carter will have a tough task, replacing Pro Bowler Javon Hargarve, who left in free agency. But Carter has legitimate All-Pro potential and has a good chance to compete for Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2023. Just the thought of watching him in 1-on-1 battles is getting me excited for camp.

DT Jordan Davis

It’s a big year for Davis. It’s not that the 2022 first-round pick had an awful first season or that he’s in danger of being a bust. But his rookie year didn’t exactly go to plan. He was just starting to hit his stride last year when he suffered a high ankle sprain that put him on IR and it took him even longer than that month to get back to 100 percent. Without Linval Joseph on the roster, the Eagles will be relying on Davis to be the full-time starter at nose tackle.

The jump from Year 1 to Year 2 is often a big one in the NFL and the Eagles have to be hoping they see that from Davis in 2023. The floor for Davis is as a run-stuffing interior defensive lineman and that is still an important piece. But they drafted him with the No. 13 overall pick last year because they think he can be more than that. He moves in a unique way and it will be fun to track his progress this summer.

LB Nakobe Dean

Many called the Eagles’ pick of Dean at No. 83 last year as the steal of the draft. But then the rookie from Georgia basically had a redshirt rookie season. He won’t be sitting on the bench in 2023. Both starting linebackers from last season — T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White — left in free agency and the Eagles didn’t use any signifiant resources this offseason to replace them. The most obvious replacement is Dean, who is expected to replace Edwards as the MIKE linebacker with the green dot on his helmet.

Dean was the leader of the Georgia team that won a championship a couple years ago but he had a pretty quiet rookie training camp. It wasn’t like he made any mistakes but he also didn’t really seem to make any splash plays. It would be nice to see a few of those from Dean in camp. There’s a lot riding on his performance this year so he can quell some fears with a strong performance this summer.

S Terrell Edmunds

The Eagles didn’t have many major free agent pickups this summer but they did add Edmunds, who is the most high profile of their defensive additions through free agency. The former first-round pick has 75 career starts under his belt from his time in Pittsburgh and is at least a solid option to take one of the two starting spots at the position in 2023.

While Edmunds is known for playing as a box safety, he has played all lover the field during his NFL career. He is the most veteran member of the group of safeties. It looks like Edmunds, Reed Blankenship and Brown are all fighting for two starting spots. So maybe Edmunds experience will give him an advantage.

LB Christian Elliss

We already talked about Dean, who is expected to be the starting MIKE linebacker. The starting WILL linebacker might be free agent pickup Nicholas Morrow … but keep an eye on Elliss. Last year, Elliss was mostly a special teamer for the Eagles and made a big difference when he was finally promoted to the active roster. In OTAs, Elliss got a chance to show his stuff on defense. In the two practices open to reporters, Elliss had two interceptions.

Elliss is listed at 6-3, 231 pounds but he definitely has more size than Dean and Morrow. It’s somewhat concerning to go into the season with two extremely slight linebackers. At a position where there are still a lot of questions, a good summer from Elliss could earn him a bigger role and some playing time.

CB Zech McPhearson

McPhearson, a fourth-round pick from 2021, is entering his third NFL season in 2023. For his first two years, McPhearson was the Eagles’ top backup at outside cornerback. But this year, the Eagles drafted Kelee Ringo and signed Greedy Williams so it seems like they won’t need him as much outside. During OTAs, we saw McPhearson getting some reps in the slot, so it’ll be interesting to see if that continues in training camp and to see if he looks like a fit there.

The backup nickel spot is an important one for the Eagles, especially after seeing Avonte Maddox suffer through three separate injuries in 2022. The Eagles’ backup nickel last year was Josiah Scott, who certainly had his rough moments. McPhearson played some nickel in college and appears to have the skills to do it at the NFL level. The Eagles love versatility.

CB Kelee Ringo

The Eagles showed how much they wanted Ringo when they traded a future third-round pick to get into the fourth round to draft him this spring. That’s a pretty uncharacteristic move for Roseman and they did it because they think there’s something special about the young cornerback, who garnered some first-round buzz during the pre-draft process.

While he might still be a tad raw, the 21-year-old Ringo has all the physical tools to be a really good player at the next level. He’s 6-2, 207 pounds with impressive speed and could develop into a future starter when Darius Slay and James Bradberry move on in a few years.

Edge Nolan Smith

There will be a ton of pressure on Carter in his rookie season but his college teammate Smith has a softer landing spot. The No. 30 pick in the draft is still behind Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat and Brandon Graham as the Eagles’ fourth edge rusher. He will get to rush the passer plenty, though, and we’ll see some of those chops this summer. He’s a unique player with his size and speed and seeing him in 1-on1-s will be fun.

It’ll also be interesting to see if Smith is lined up strictly as an edge player or if the Eagles will use him in different ways. Will they blitz him? Will they use him as a stacked linebacker? Smith is a unique player and I’m curious to see Sean Desai’s plan for him.

LB Ben VanSumeren

At a position with so many unknowns, the undrafted rookie from Michigan State is intriguing. VanSumeren began his college career as an offensive player at Michigan before flipping sides. He was just a one-year starter at linebacker but is a crazy athlete. He’s just raw as a linebacker. VanSumeren is definitely more of a project but maybe some of that athleticism will shine through at times.

It seems highly unlikely that VanSumeren will make the Eagles’ 53-man roster. But I’m curious to see if he shows enough to make the project worthwhile. If so, then he can stick around on the practice squad and continue to develop.

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