Over the next few weeks leading up to training camp, we’ll be counting down the top 25 most important Eagles for the 2023 season.
25. Nolan Smith
24. Quez Watkins
23. Kenny Gainwell
22. Marcus Mariota
21. Reed Blankenship
20. Brandon Graham
19. D'Andre Swift
18. Avonte Maddox
17. Cam Jurgens
16. Fletcher Cox
15. Landon Dickerson
14. Jordan Davis
13. Nakobe Dean
12. Jalen Carter
11. James Bradberry
10. Jordan Mailata
9. Josh Sweat
8. DeVonta Smith
7. Darius Slay
6. Dallas Goedert
5. Jason Kelce
4. A.J. Brown
3. Haason Reddick
The Eagles led the NFL in sacks by a wide margin in 2022. They had an incredible 70 in the regular season and the next closest team was the Chiefs with 55.
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Leading the way, in his first season in Philadelphia, was hometown hero Haason Reddick.
Reddick, 28, finished the regular season with 16 sacks and finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting behind just Nick Bosa, Micah Parsons and Chris Jones. He also became the first player in NFL history to log 10+ sacks in three consecutive seasons for three different teams.
The Eagles got Reddick on a three-year, $45 million contract that proved to be a bargain pretty quickly. Entering 2023, Reddick is the 13th-highest paid edge rusher in the NFL. There are nowhere near 12 edge rushers better than him. Perhaps after this coming season, another extension is in the cards.
Reddick really got hot late in the 2022 season. He started off the year with two games without a sack and didn’t have a two-game drought the rest of the way. From Week 10 on, Reddick had more sacks (10 1/2) than anyone in football, including DPOY Nick Bosa, who had 10.
NFL
And even in the playoffs, Reddick was great. He had 1 1/2 sacks against the Giants in the divisional round and 2 against the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. In the Super Bowl, he just couldn’t find his footing on the sloppy field. But even with those awful conditions, Reddick’s 3 1/2 sacks still led the league in the 2022 playoffs.
It wasn’t just sacks in 2022 either. Reddick also had 26 QB hits, 11 tackles for loss, 3 passes broken up, 3 fumble recoveries and 5 forced fumbles.
Those forced fumbles really stand out. Reddick was tied for the league lead in forced fumbles in 2022 and since the start of the 2020 season has 13 to lead the NFL. The next closest player is Shaq Leonard with 11; the next closest edge player is DeMarcus Lawrence with 9.
The Eagles lost a lot of key pieces from the 2022 team on defense, including Javon Hargrave, T.J. Edwards, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and more. But they bring back their best defensive player from last year in Reddick.
And he wants to take a more active leadership role with the Eagles. In the second half of last season, Reddick became more vocal and even gave one of the more memorable speeches the night before the Super Bowl, according to a few teammates.
“Getting ready to make the transition to be one of those pieces that the team is going to have to lean on,” Reddick said after the season ended. “I’m just going to do whatever I can in my power to uplift everybody. It will look a little different. Just uplift everybody and do whatever I can to help this team get back and achieve the goals that we wanted to achieve this year.”
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