Ad Disclosure
Jordan Davis Says he “Fell Off” in Second Half of Eagles’ Season
Published:
Dave Zangaro at NBC Sports Philadelphia:
As the Eagles cleaned out their lockers last week a couple days after their season ended with a playoff loss in Tampa, the Eagles’ nose tackle admitted what the rest of us saw down the stretch:
He fell off at the end of the year.
“That’s one thing I have to work on is playing consistently,” Davis said. “Have to look in the mirror at the end of the day. I’m a man. I can admit when I’ve fallen off. I fell off at the end of the year. I can admit that.
The candor is appreciated. Davis told reporters he was “beat” and talked about small knocks piling up as the season progressed.
It’s a somewhat underrated story, isn’t it? The Eagles have these first round SEC defensive tackles, but they’ve never played this much football before. Jalen Carter played 17 games this year. Davis played 17 as well, an increase from 13 games his rookie year.
Thing is, neither played more than 50% of the available defensive snaps. According to Pro Football Reference, the Birds’ DT distribution looked like this:
- Fletcher Cox: 684 snaps / 58.8%
- Jalen Carter: 563 snaps / 48.4%
- Jordan Davis: 519 snaps / 44.6%
- Milton Williams: 494 snaps / 42.5%
- Marlon Tuipulotu: 162 snaps / 13.9%
- Kentavius Street: 87 snaps / 7.4%
- Moro Ojomo: 68 snaps / 5.8%
Note that Carter, Davis, and Williams also play on special teams, so their total counts will match Fletcher Cox’s defensive snaps, but we’re talking about a couple of guys in their early 20s who are playing less than half of the defensive snaps. Cox is close to retirement, so the torch is going to be passed sooner rather than later. Even in the Birds’ heavy DT rotation, there’s going to be more asked of them. Last year, for instance, both Cox and Javon Hargrave played almost 65% of the snaps each, so Davis and Carter are going to have to get there at some point, and soon.
I’m going to go ahead and set my own odds for Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter snap counts this year. I’m sports betting in New Jersey with a Davis snap count O/U of 50%, and Carter at 56%. Keep in mind, Davis jumped from 20% as a rookie to 44.6% this year, so it was a huge increase from year 1 to year 2. And we’re not totally sure where the Birds are going with their defensive coordinator hire, so we don’t have a great read on whether Davis is going to be this big space eater or perhaps shed some weight and play a more common three technique DT.
These aren’t 5th round project players, they’re first round draft picks coming from one of the top three programs in the country. A lot is going to rest on their shoulders.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com