Philadelphia Eagles: Top three breakout candidates on defense

The Philadelphia Eagles are expecting breakout seasons from a handful of defensive players this year.

Despite ranking as the 10th best defense last year in terms of total yards allowed, the Philadelphia Eagles had some serious concerns on the defensive side of the ball. They finished the year tied for the fourth lowest interceptions forced, and their injury-prone secondary was routinely exposed by opposing offenses.

Heading into 2020, Howie Roseman and the Philly front office have done quite a bit to sure up this side of the ball. They traded for former All-Pro corner Darius Slay, signed free agent defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, added a number of versatile DBs on cheap contracts, and drafted four defensive players. Even with all these new additions coming into town, the Eagles are still going to need above-average seasons from a few players if they want to compete this season.

Any player can break out at any time, but there are a few names currently on the Eagles who seem more likely to pop than others. With that said, all rookies will be excluded from this list seeing as it’s impossible to really call a good rookie season a “breakout year”.

Former undrafted free agent TJ Edwards is expecting a huge snap increase in 2020.

TJ Edwards is the best breakout candidate when it comes to the defense, primarily due to the absurd increase in responsibility he will likely see this year. The possibility of Edwards turning into a solid linebacker this season has been talked about to death, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

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An undrafted free agent coming out of Wisconsin last year, Edwards was praised for his natural football instincts, but criticized for his lack of elite athleticism. He was a First-Team All American in 2017, 2x First-Team All-Big Ten, and the Cotton Bowl MVP in 2017.

Edwards caught some people’s attention during training camp and the preseason, impressing enough members of the Eagles’ coaching staff to land a roster spot in 2019. Edwards ended up playing in all 16 games last year, even making the start in four.

Edwards almost exclusively saw the field during “run downs” last season, as he was only targeted in the passing game five total times. He recorded 30 tackles (15 solo), recording a tackle rate of 96.8% in the process.

Edwards looks to be a natural when it comes to tracking down ball carriers, but still leaves a lot to be desired in the passing game. Regardless if he improved in coverage or not this offseason, Edwards is being thrusted into a huge role this year. The only other solidified linebacker on the roster is Nate Gerry, and he has his own issues to talk about (we’ll save that for another article).

As long as Edwards can stay on the field in 2020, he’ll easily crush his season totals from last year, and could genuinely make a push to lead the entire roster in total tackles.