Philadelphia Eagles: Malik Jackson should start over Derek Barnett

The Philadelphia Eagles should reward their training camp MVP.

Derek Barnett has started every game he’s appeared in since Week 1 of the Philadelphia Eagles‘ 2018 season. Theoretically, that sounds impressive, and in a bubble, it kind of is, but not all starts are created equal.

You see, starting Barnett is sort of a marriage of convenience.

He was selected 14th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft, the highest pick the Philadelphia Eagles have invested on a defensive end since Brandon Graham in 2010. With Vinny Curry jettisoned to a very fruitless marriage with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers mere weeks after riding down Broad Street a Super Bowl Champion, it was only natural to elevate Barnett to the Birds’ vacant left defensive end position across from, fittingly enough, Brandon Graham; a spot many assumed he’d fill for a very long time.

More from Section 215

Only, here’s the thing, Barnett hasn’t really done much to keep his current spot other than being the second-highest-paid end on a team that doesn’t seem to value the position very highly.

Barnett started six games for the Eagles in 2018 before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. In those games, Barnett was arguably outplayed by both 2017 free agent acquisition Chris Long and 2018 tradee Michael Bennett. With both Long and Bennett gone the following fall for… reasons, Barnett again went unchallenged for his starting spot, with neither Josh Sweat or a returning Curry making a strong enough case to earn more than 35 percent of the team’s defensive snaps.

With Barnett now signed through the 2021 season after having his fifth-year option picked up earlier this summer, it’s entirely possible the former Tennessee Volunteer may continue to skate by as the Birds’ top option across from Graham, but really is that good enough? The Eagles’ defense as a whole has declined in each subsequent season since Super Bowl LII and a lot of that regression can be directly associated with a decline in pressures from the front four.

However, even though the Eagles only added two defensive linemen of note to their roster this offseason – ex-Pittsburgh Steelers’ nose tackle Javon Hargrave and Stanford seventh-rounder Casey Toohill – doesn’t mean Jim Schwartz‘s defensive end rotation is in for more of the same old same old on the outside. No, the Eagles’ pass rush may have an unlikely revelation in one of the biggest question marks of 2019: Malik Jackson.

Since suffering a season-ending injury in the Eagles’ Week 1 win over Washington, Jackson has become something of a forgotten man in South Philly. Sure, he has a good track record and was considered a solid signing last spring, but if he’s so good, why did Howie Roseman sign Hargraves? Seems like overkill to have three starting-caliber defensive tackles in a wide-nine defense, right?

Maybe so, but Jackson isn’t an inside only player.

Since coming into the NFL as a 6-foot-4, 259-pound defensive end out of Tennessee, Jackson bulked up considerably to play defensive end in the Denver Broncos’ 3-4 defensive front. Jackson then signed a very lucrative deal with Calais Cambell on the Jacksonville Jaguars, where he technically played 4-3 defensive tackle but earned snaps at all four of then-defensive coordinator Todd Wash’s defensive front. Now bulked up to 290 pounds, Jackson still has a good bit of speed coming off the edge, with a destructive first step and the power to drive through contact from either a guard or a tackle.

Fun fact: Malik Jackson, Clay Matthews, and Everson Griffen were actually teammates at USC before the former transferred to Tennessee. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, Jackson hasn’t been able to moonlight too often on the outside so far this summer, as Hargraves will be out for the remainder of the preseason with a pec injury, but once the season starts up and the Eagles take the field at full strength – football gods willing – that should be a completely different story. Jackson should not only earn starter snaps, but he should be outright named a starter in place of Barnett. Jackson may be the Eagles’ training camp MVP so far this summer and deserves some recognition for his hard work.

I mean think about it, starting a defensive front with Hargrave at the one tech, Fletcher Cox at the three, Jackson at the five and Graham at the seven could be absolutely lethal. Is it rather antithetical to what Schwartz likes to do? Maybe so, the fomer Lions’ head coach has made his bones on a scheme that lines up long, range-y defensive ends way off the tackle’s outside shoulder but which is more important, schematic purity or knocking a darn quarterback on his keester? A starting front featuring those four beefy battering rams would be able to collapse even the soundest pocket and force opposing offensive coordinators to completely alter their gameplans.

And hey, if you recall, Barnett’s best season came as a change of pass rusher behind a bigger, inside-out rusher, so maybe reverting him to that role could help him continue on his career either here on the fifth-year option, or elsewhere.

5 potential surprise training camp cuts before Week 1. dark. Next

Look, personally, I find the concept of who is or isn’t a starter rather dumb. A starting linebacker may end up playing less than 40 percent of a game’s defensive snaps, whereas a nickel cornerback may play north of 70 without getting to shout out their college team in the first quarter. If Derek Barnett really wants to continue on as a starter for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Malik Jackson is cool coming off the bench, keeping things as is wouldn’t be the worst idea. But in a true meritocracy, why not get the best four defensive linemen on the field for the first snap of the game? If that’s the case, rolling with Jackson may just be the statement needed to get everyone on the defensive line gunning for his spot.

Home/Philadelphia Eagles