Philadelphia Eagles: Hassan Ridgeway has an inside track to be back in 2021
Hassan Ridgeway has been a member of the Philadelphia Eagles for the past two seasons.
Over his two-year tenure with the team, Ridgeway has played 386 defensive snaps – 248 in 2019 and 138 in 2020 – split over 14 games and has amassed 19 tackles, five QB hits, and three sacks before having both of his seasons finished off with a one-way trip to IR.
Though Ridgeway was locked into a one-year extension following a decent enough debut campaign, it felt like a borderline lock that the Eagles would move on from the former fourth-round pick out of Texas when the 2021 NFL calendar year opened up, as youngsters like Raequan Williams could be retained for much less than his 2020 $1.01 million cap. Factor in other “veteran” defensive tackles like T.Y. McGill, who arguably turned in more impactful 2020 seasons, and the case for retaining Ridgeway rapidly eroded away.
But on January 24, 2021, everything changed.
Ridgeway could help his fellow Philadelphia Eagles learn Gannon’s system.
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Malik Jackson will not be back with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021.
While the former Jacksonville Jaguar didn’t play bad per se in 2020, as he actually turned in a few solid performances in the leadup to the bye week, the writing was on the wall the moment Javon Hargrave signed the most lucrative contract in the history of NFL nose tackles that Jackson’s days in South Philly were numbered.
Once his contract was reworked by Howie Roseman to free up his release back in January, it became a matter of when Jackson will be back, not if.
So, assuming the Eagles’ defensive interior trio is now down to two, the Philadelphia Eagles need bodies to rotate in behind their top two tackles even if they aren’t as impactful as Jackson.
But, in this season specifically, that isn’t all the Eagles need.
No, while acquiring schematically compatible players at every position is imperative, the Eagles will also need to specifically target players who have experience in new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s transplanted Indianapolis Colts 4-3 defensive formation.
In that regard, the idea of retaining Hasson Ridgeway becomes a whole lot more attractive, as the former fourth-round pick out of Texas actually started out his NFL career as a member of the Colts.
Initially drafted as a 3-4 defensive end for Chuck Pagano’s scheme by ex-general manager Ryan Grigson, Ridgeway had his best season as a pro in Matt Eberflus’s 4-3 defense in 2018 before being traded to the Eagles for a seventh-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft on April 27th.
Granted, that’s only one year in a system that may ultimately prove to be notably different from the one Gannon ultimately brings along with him to South Philly, but one thing that doesn’t usually change all that much is the terminology a coach learns to use. Even if Ridgeway is only a part-time rotational player destined to play on a sub-$1 million deal, that knowledge is valuable.
It becomes even more valuable when you consider that 1. the Eagles aren’t going to be big players in free agency and 2. there aren’t any defensive tackles from the Colts available in free agency this year.
Assuming the Eagles want to pull a Jim Schwartz and procure as many former Colts as possible to ease the adaptation of Gannon’s system – a concept the team has already started to do by claiming one-time Colt Shakial Taylor off of waivers – retaining a player like Ridgeway who already has pre-existing relationships with a bunch of the team’s defensive stalwarts is a pretty darn hard decision to pass up.
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In an ideal world, the Philadelphia Eagles would use one of their first four picks in the 2021 NFL Draft on an interior pass rusher and prepare for a life a few years down the line without peak-era Fletcher Cox. The team hasn’t used a draft pick on a defensive tackle of note since they invested a seventh on Beau Allen in 2014 and will eventually need to address the position with a high-upside youngster with room to grow. With that being said, Hassan Ridgeway still provides value as a fourth defensive tackle who knows what Jonathan Gannon wants to do. Assuming he’d like to return to Philadelphia on a similar deal to the contract he signed last spring, retaining his services could be a deceptively big get for a team with a lot of needs across the board.