Za'Darius Smith Already Making Eagles Look Smart After Week 5 Performance

Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

The Philadelphia Eagles' offensive struggles have understandably dominated the discourse since the start of the season. Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo has been under heavy fire, which reached its peak in Week 5 as the Eagles' offense completely collapsed once again in the second-half loss to the Broncos. What the disappointing offensive production has been masking, however, is the defensive unit not being at the level it was at last season.

The Eagles rank 16th in points and 21st in yards allowed for the season as they fail to put pressure on the opposing quarterbacks, ranking near the bottom of the NFL in sacks with only seven through five games. Despite this underwhelming performance through five weeks, however, one veteran defender has been shining week in week out. Za'Darius Smith has been turning back the clock since joining the team a month ago.

Za'Darius Smith's Incentive-Based Contract Looking Like a Major Steal

Smith had another productive game on Sunday. Playing 46% of the Eagles' defensive snaps, Smith finished with three tackles, one sack, one tackle for loss, and two QB hits. His sack came on a big third-down to push Denver out of field goal range, potentially taking three points off the board.

What this suggests is that the Eagles have made a very savvy move by adding the 33-year-old pass rusher. All offseason, Smith was rumored to be heading back to the Detroit Lions. Instead, the Eagles swooped in and poached him with an incentive-based contract. Now, this decision is looking like a home run deal by GM Howie Roseman.

Smith's deal is worth up to $8.25 million for the season, but the base salary is only $4.25 million. Pro Football Talk reported the details of this deal as "$2.5 million in sack incentives, tied to an increasing amount of sack numbers," as well as a Pro Bowl bonus and an incentive tied to the Eagles making it to the Super Bowl while Smith plays a certain number of snaps.

As The Athletic's Zach Berman pointed out on X, the veteran pass rusher is now up to 1.5 sacks for the season, 3.5 sacks away from the incentives in his contract for sacks to start to kick in, before pointing out that Smith was confident that he could hit the incentives before signing that deal.

Considering how desperately Smith wanted to re-sign with the Lions, it seems rather obvious that the financial aspect of the deal was the reason nothing materialized there. Now, Detroit likely regrets not making that move after seeing how productive Smith has been. For the Eagles, this couldn't have come at a better time, when they are dealing with injuries in the pass rush.

More Philadelphia Eagles news and rumors: