Philadelphia Eagles: Josh Sweat is blossoming into a star before our eyes

Sleep on Josh Sweat at your own risk, Philadelphia Eagles fans.

The Philadelphia Eagles are not a particularly good football team.

Granted, they aren’t quite as bad as their 1-4-1 record would suggest, as the team is legitimately a handful of turnovers – and a botched two-point conversion – away from being 3-3, maybe even 4-2 atop the brutally bad NFC East. But hey, you know what long time NFL commentator Don Meredith would say, “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, wouldn’t it be a merry Christmas?”

With a brutally inefficient offensive line that seemingly gets worse with each week and an overall set of schematic philosophies that seem unwilling to compromise to the limitations of their roster, one would be forgiven if they simply tuned out of the Eagles game at half time, assuming, of course, you didn’t want to miss any more Jalen Hurts trick plays; trick plays that unfortunately didn’t come when the Eagles needed them most.

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But hey, why only focus on the negatives immediately after an all too predictable loss? Others will surely do so, and I’ll probably get around to it myself as well. No, I’d instead like to take a few minutes to talk about the Eagles’ dominant run defense and their emerging do-it-all-DE Josh Sweat.

You see, through the first five games of the season, the Eagles didn’t allow a single running back to pick up 100 yards in a game. They allowed the eighth-fewest yards-per-carry on the season despite being run against the 10th most times of any team in the league.

Many assumed this would change in Week 6, as the Baltimore Ravens are the second-best rushing team in the league behind their AFC North divisionmates the Cleveland Browns, but that really wasn’t the case. Even with Lamar Jackson‘s fourth-quarter scramble dashing the team’s no-100-yard-rusher streak, the Eagles held the Ravens’ running backs to 74 combined rushing yards on 28 carries.

And leading the way for the Eagles’ rushing attack was Sweat, with five tackles, three tackles for loss, and a pass defensed.

Now sure, did other players have flashy sack totals? Most definitely, Brandon Graham recorded two sacks on Jackson for his first multi-sack game since Week 3, but what made Sweat’s game all the more eye-opening was how he performed versus the expectations.

Measuring in at 6-foot-5, 265 pounds, Sweat was mostly used as a pass-rushing specialist through the first two years of his professional career. While his role has expanded considerably as a third-year pro, averaging 50 percent of the team’s defensive snaps versus 35 in 2018, many still assumed Sweat would fill more of a rushing specialist role a la Chris Long as opposed to a three-down defensive end.

If you still hold that belief, you need to stop it, and get some help, because it’s simply no longer true.

In Week 6, Sweat was so frequently in the Ravens’ backfield that he may as well have been playing running back. His ability to breeze past legitimately talented tackles like Ronnie Stanley and Orlando Brown was so genuinely impressive that said duo started committing illegal formation penalties to get a better pre-snap position.

Whether lined up on the left or right side, it felt like the Ravens shaded their running attempts away from Sweat’s edge, with J.K. Dobbins taking a noticeable backseat to Rutgers power rusher Gus Edwards.

Heck, Sweat even kinda sorta figured out how to correctly defend an option play, arguably the biggest issue holding the 23-year-old back from a more expansive role through the first month of the season.

No wonder Jackson explicitly met up with Sweat post-game to give him props: Game respects game… then again, he did the same for Jamon Brown, so maybe that doesn’t actually mean anything at all.

Through the first six weeks of the season, Sweat now has 17 tackles, six tackles for a loss, three sacks, and a forced fumble. While those aren’t 2019 Shaquil Barrett numbers, it’s hard to argue that Sweat hasn’t been the more impactful player in 2020 – clearly outplaying Derek Barnett, Vinny Curry, Genard Avery, and even Graham through the first six weeks of the season.

Call it a moral victory, but I’ll take Sweat’s development as a consolation prize for an otherwise ugly season.

dark. Next. The Philadelphia Eagles need to stop valuing Marcus Epps over Grayland Arnold

For much of the offseason, the Philadelphia Eagles were linked to Jadeveon Clowney, a dominant pocket collapser who’s never been particularly impressive at sealing the deal on a would-be sack. Though it’s hard to argue the Eagles are better off without the ex-Seahawk, as you can never have enough good pass rushers, Josh Sweat’s game is starting to look eerily similar to the former first overall pick, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as he was once considered the best player in the country in his class. Now finally healthy, it looks like Sweat is finally living up to the mantle five years later, which is better late than never in this fan’s opinion.

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