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The DiCecco Daily: Very Young iDL Group Offers Intrigue, Upside, Some Dark Horses · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's up everybody. Andrew Decheco checking back in with
• 0:12
  you all. Hope everybody's having a great Monday. And the
• 0:16
  position preview series, as I alluded to in our first
• 0:19
  podcast today, continues on with the defensive tackle room, one
• 0:24
  that you should be pretty excited about because it has
• 0:27
  a young nucleus. Really, the oldest player on that unit
• 0:32
  is Thomas Booker, who's just twenty five years old. But
• 0:35
  there are questions that need to be answered. Let's delve
• 0:38
  into it. First. I'm just going to highlight Jalen Carter,
• 0:42
  and then I'm going to discuss at length the players
• 0:44
  who are beyond Jalen Carter on the depth chart. Because
• 0:48
  Jalen Carter should need no introduction. He is the centerpiece
• 0:52
  of the Eagles defense and has quickly become heralded among
• 0:56
  the elite at his position. This is a impactful, physical,
• 1:01
  explosive athlete who finds ways to really terrorize offensive lineman
• 1:08
  played eighty four percent of the snaps last season for
• 1:11
  the Eagles in the regular season and then eighty eight
• 1:13
  snaps for the Eagles in the playoffs. He barely comes
• 1:17
  off the field and he impacts almost every play, even
• 1:20
  if he's not factoring into the stat sheet. Jalen Carter
• 1:23
  is finding ways to open things up for teammates and
• 1:27
  force offensive linemen and really offenses to account for him
• 1:32
  at every turn. So this is a player that I'm expecting.
• 1:35
  If you listen to what Fake Vanrew had to say
• 1:37
  earlier this offseason, you know, he said he's a young pup,
• 1:41
  so that would suggest that the usage it shouldn't reduce.
• 1:46
  And I'm expecting to see Jalen Carter's snap share, snap total,
• 1:51
  I should say, increase this year because I think you're
• 1:55
  going to see a really interesting blend of players that
• 1:58
  I think can compliment And a lot of this is
• 2:01
  banking on the development of two players in particular. So
• 2:05
  let's get right to it. Because the first player on
• 2:07
  the list is one who's always under the microscope and
• 2:10
  really has been since his rookie season, and that's Jordan Davis.
• 2:15
  So Jordan Davis is entering his fourth season. The Eagles
• 2:19
  picked up his fifth year option, or they exercised his
• 2:21
  fifth year option to no surprise if you look at
• 2:25
  the way that Davis closed out the twenty twenty four season, well,
• 2:29
  he picked up a sack in the NFC Title Game
• 2:31
  and another sack in the Super Bowl. But as we
• 2:34
  followed his career to this point, we know that pass
• 2:37
  rush hasn't been his forte though he is a really
• 2:40
  stout run defender. But Davis is in terrific shape. The
• 2:44
  Eagles are banking on him, They're showing faith in the player,
• 2:47
  and I assume that, I mean, I guess the assumption
• 2:51
  is that Davis is going to use the end of
• 2:53
  last season as a springboard and continue that development. Now.
• 2:57
  I'm not expecting him to suddenly turn into to the
• 3:00
  second coming of Warren Sapp, but I think it's also
• 3:03
  unfair to put a cap on what a player is
• 3:04
  able to do. Now, can he give you a handful
• 3:07
  of sacks? Perhaps, But the Eagles really need Davis to
• 3:10
  take on some of the snaps that were lost when
• 3:14
  Milton Williams departed in free agency and signed with the Patriots.
• 3:17
  Milton Williams played five hundred and one snaps last season,
• 3:21
  so that is a sizable void, and Jordan Davis needs
• 3:25
  to be able to play more than the thirty seven
• 3:27
  percent of the snaps that he played last season and
• 3:29
  twenty one percent in the postseason. Not exactly how the
• 3:33
  Eagles drew it up, I assume, but they're also doubling
• 3:37
  down in their support of Davis, so that should suggest
• 3:41
  that they foresee a larger role for the mountainous defensive tackle,
• 3:47
  who I think is still developing as a player. The
• 3:54
  next one on that list is another crucial component to
• 3:57
  the success of this unit, and that is year defensive
• 4:01
  tackle Moro Ojomo so A. Jomo played very little as
• 4:06
  a rookie, just in a handful of games last season,
• 4:09
  he made the leap to the fourth defensive tackle. He
• 4:12
  was active in the rotation twenty one tackles. The regular
• 4:15
  season stats can be a little misleading because whenever he
• 4:18
  is on the field, much like the next player I'm
• 4:20
  going to talk about, or a couple players later, you
• 4:24
  see the impact that he makes. He is an interior force,
• 4:28
  he has violent hands, he's powerful despite being an undersized player,
• 4:33
  and he's gotten better each of his first two seasons.
• 4:36
  Another year working with defensive line coach Clint Hurt should
• 4:40
  help give him that boost this summer. And listen, Moro
• 4:45
  Jomo is stepping into a starting role here with the Eagles,
• 4:49
  and the team believes in him. If you listen to
• 4:52
  fake Vanjo last season. He gave him endorsements whenever asked
• 4:56
  about Moro, and I do believe that he has this
• 5:00
  skill set and the ability to use leverage to his advantage.
• 5:04
  That should be an appealing facet or an appealing aspect
• 5:08
  to his game and I think will help the defense
• 5:10
  in turn. Now, he also played thirty seven percent of
• 5:13
  the snaps last season, the same amount as Jordan Davis.
• 5:17
  So this is a projection. I'm not going to just
• 5:19
  cast that aside. It's a projection, but the Eagles have
• 5:23
  seen what they've needed to see to feel comfortable moving
• 5:27
  forward with Moro, Jomo and Jordan Davis sort of supplementing
• 5:32
  the loss of Milton Williams. So that will be something
• 5:35
  to keep an eye on. Then that brings us to
• 5:37
  Ty Robinson, who the Eagles drafted in the fourth round
• 5:40
  in April. He's a player that has a lot of
• 5:43
  experience at the college level, and he has that toughness
• 5:47
  and a balanced skill set that should make him a
• 5:50
  multifaceted player. He's six foot six, three hundred and ten pounds,
• 5:54
  and what I know is that he's going to bring
• 5:57
  some juice to the rotation. You see it in college.
• 6:00
  You go back and look at his tape. I saw
• 6:02
  it in OTA's The way that he moves, his intensity
• 6:05
  and his lower body explosiveness are qualities that to me
• 6:10
  indicate a player who's ready to help in the immediate future.
• 6:15
  I don't think he's somebody that the Eagles are going
• 6:17
  to have to work and develop gradually. I think Robinson
• 6:21
  can help you as that fourth defensive tackle and give
• 6:24
  you some productive snaps in the early going. The next
• 6:29
  on the list is Thomas Booker, the fourth I sort
• 6:32
  of alluded to Thomas Booker every time he was on
• 6:35
  the field last season. I noticed him played sixteen percent
• 6:38
  of the snaps and picked up a sack. He had
• 6:42
  a couple quarterback hits, two tackles for loss. So I
• 6:45
  see a player who maximized his opportunities. It stuck out
• 6:49
  to me because I kept sometimes when I watch games,
• 6:53
  I'll highlight players who flashed, but I write it down
• 6:57
  because I don't want it to get overlooked in the
• 6:58
  grand scheme. Booker, especially earlier in the season. I can
• 7:02
  remember the Falcons game in particular watching him hustle. You
• 7:06
  see the unrelenting effort and things like that, chasing down
• 7:09
  a screenplay. Those are things that I jot down and
• 7:12
  I revisit later. But you can see why Thomas Booker
• 7:16
  made the photoph Eagles last year. He had a really
• 7:18
  productive training camp. There wasn't a play that he took off.
• 7:22
  You see the energy. He has positional versatility, so we
• 7:25
  can help them at multiple positions on the defensive line.
• 7:28
  He's really the primary backup to Jordan Davis at the
• 7:31
  nose position. And I just think that one. He's a
• 7:35
  highly smart player. He went to Stanford, he knows the
• 7:37
  system really well, and I think when you look at
• 7:41
  what he brings to the table, it's versatility and its effort.
• 7:46
  Byron Young is another player who's going to be given
• 7:48
  an opportunity, and some may actually view him as most
• 7:52
  intriguing because we don't really know what he's all about.
• 7:55
  He played in six games for the Raiders back in
• 7:58
  twenty twenty three. The Raiders, by the way, drafted Byron
• 8:01
  Young in the third round out of Alabama, and then
• 8:04
  last summer he didn't get to see his second season
• 8:06
  in Vegas because they parted with him during roster cutdowns.
• 8:10
  He was waived. The Eagles claimed Young off waivers and
• 8:13
  then he was sort of stabbed. He was on the
• 8:16
  roster and wasn't active, and then he had a hamstring
• 8:19
  injury which shut him down for the twenty twenty four season.
• 8:23
  So the Eagles did invest in young. He does have
• 8:26
  now a full year in the system, learning, sitting in meetings,
• 8:30
  so that would certainly be appealing and should help him
• 8:33
  hit the ground running this summer. But again, this is
• 8:36
  a player who is largely an unknown entity because he's
• 8:40
  only played six games in the NFL. So we'll have
• 8:45
  to see. Because at six foot three, two hundred and
• 8:47
  ninety two pounds, he also brings some versatility to the
• 8:49
  table and I think you have to like the potential
• 8:53
  upside that he carries. But again, he's just one of
• 8:57
  the young players that are vying for what will probably
• 8:59
  be a final spot in the pecking order. He'll be
• 9:03
  competing with Thomas Booker. The fourth and the last player
• 9:08
  on this list who I think pretty highly of, and
• 9:10
  that is Gabe Hall. Now Gabe Hall if you don't
• 9:14
  know who he is, if you're not familiar, he was
• 9:17
  among the more intriguing rookie free agent signings last spring.
• 9:20
  He went to Baylor. He six foot six two hundred
• 9:23
  and ninety five pounds. He offers positional versatility. You notice
• 9:28
  a common theme. He can play all of the positions
• 9:30
  on the defensive line. Didn't really flash last summer. I
• 9:33
  was hoping to see a little bit more consistency, a
• 9:35
  little bit more of an impact, but nevertheless, he stuck
• 9:38
  on the practice squad and he spent the entire season there.
• 9:41
  And in fact, when I checked in with Gabe Hall
• 9:44
  last year to kind of see how his progression and
• 9:47
  how his development was going, because I am curious, I
• 9:50
  scot a lot of these players throughout the pre draft process,
• 9:53
  and Gabe really said that going against Landon Dickerson, Eagles
• 9:57
  three time Pro Bowl guard, was a value experience and
• 10:01
  that Dickerson really the matchups were one sided because Dickerson
• 10:06
  got the better of him. But he mentioned about how
• 10:09
  that helped him and and helped his game last season. Again,
• 10:13
  another player who spent the year working with defensive line
• 10:16
  coach Clint Hurt and sat in the meeting rooms. So
• 10:19
  he's an athletic player. He like his size, and when
• 10:23
  you factor all that in with the cost effective contract
• 10:26
  that he also carries, that has to be pretty appealing
• 10:29
  if you're an Eagles team that eventually you're going to
• 10:31
  have to pay Jalen Carter, You're going to have to
• 10:34
  pay Nolan Smith. There's going to be contracts down the
• 10:39
  line for Quinnon, Mitchell, and Cooper Dejen Reed blankenships. So
• 10:43
  as you can see, eventually the pendulum will shift and
• 10:47
  the Eagles are suddenly going to have to invest some
• 10:49
  money into their defense if they want to keep these
• 10:52
  pieces around. Where right now they have a lot of
• 10:54
  money invested in the offense. So a player like Gabe
• 10:58
  Hall as maybe a fifth or sixth defensive tackle. He
• 11:02
  may not play much this season, barring injury or something unforeseen,
• 11:07
  but he's a player that if you keep him around
• 11:09
  you to develop them, you have a depth piece for
• 11:11
  the future. So these are all things to keep in
• 11:14
  mind as you're trying to put the roster together or
• 11:17
  how these players fit into the equation in your mind.
• 11:19
  But that's kind of how I see that right now,
• 11:22
  and really that rounds out the whole group outside of
• 11:25
  Jalen Carter, so you have to feel pretty good about it. Now.
• 11:28
  There's some questions that we have here, and I'm curious
• 11:31
  to see how the final the final spot really starts
• 11:36
  to play out because you have, for different reasons, intriguing
• 11:39
  players in Gabe Hall, in Byron Young, and also Thomas Booker,
• 11:44
  who has the year of experience over these players, at
• 11:47
  least regular season experience. So we'll have to see because
• 11:51
  there's reasons to be intrigued by all three and that
• 11:55
  really makes up what is a youth infused room who
• 11:58
  should take a step forward here even in light of
• 12:01
  the loss of Milton Williams. This has been to czech
• 12:04
  O Delhi. I am Andrew de Checko, and I'll talk
• 12:06
  to everybody tomorrow. I have a great evening.