Linebackers have plenty to prove this year

First in a series.

Departed Eagles veteran left tackle Jason Peters continues to be mentioned as an option for them if his chosen successor, 2019 firstround draft pick Andre Dillard, falters.

Perhaps the same is true of linebacker Nigel Bradham, who was brought to Philadelphia in 2016 because of his track record playing in a system coached by defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

In this first of a five-part series of Eagles Hotspots examining some troubling areas of uncertainty, we look closely at linebacker.

Like Peters, Bradham remains a free agent after four seasons with the Eagles, who don’t even have a clear-cut replacement for him and seem to be playing with fire with Nate Gerry as the only linebacker on their roster with any

significant NFL playing experience.

The Eagles this offseason not only jettisoned Bradham but also fellow starter Kamu GrugierHill, opening the door for the likes of veteran holdovers T.J. Edwards, Duke Riley and Alex Singleton, then added Jatavis Brown in free agency before drafting Davion Taylor in the third round, Shaun Bradley in the sixth and Casey Toohill, who projects as a defensive end, in the seventh. The combined career number of pro defensive snaps for every linebacker on the team not named Gerry and Brown, who lost his starting job with the Chargers last season, is 775.

Riley, who is listed at just 218 pounds, owns 660 of them, with all but 29 coming with the Atlanta Falcons. And like Brown, Riley lost his starting job in Atlanta before being traded early in 2019 to the Eagles, who limited him almost exclusively to special teams the rest of the way.

Those are the options for a team that feels it helped itself immensely in front of them with the addition of Javon Hargrave and behind them with the additions of cornerbacks Darius Slay and Nickell Robey-Coleman and safeties Will Parks and K’Von Wallace.

But linebacker?

Coach Doug Pederson and general manager Howie Roseman certainly are excited about the speed and explosiveness they added. But in an offseason that has been wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic, they likely won’t know what they have until late in the summer.

And by then, it could be too late.

For now, the Eagles are counting on the undersized Brown (5-11, 220) to regain the form he showed in 2018 (100 tackles) and a whole bunch of other players with little or no pro experience. Rookies Taylor and Bradley are the prized additions. They both have tremendous speed measurables but are otherwise unproven.

“[Taylor] is one of the fastest, most explosive players in the draft,” Roseman said shortly after drafting him. “Obviously, he has some raw [talent] to his game. That’s why he’s there in the third round. But I think we have a vision for how he’s going to be used in our defense, and I think it’s consistent with what we talked about when we started the offseason. This guy is very fast. He has a role. Obviously, he has a role not only on defense, but also on special teams. But we think this guy has the traits in his body to develop into a starter who can make plays all over the field. That’s what we think his ceiling is, and we have to get him there. … We’re not drafting this guy in the third round because we don’t think he’s going to be a serious contributor in his rookie contract. We’re certainly hoping that he’s going to get out on the field as quickly as possible. The defensive staff is really excited about him, and we also think he can be a difference-maker on special teams.”

Conspicuous by his absence is Schwartz, who does no interviews beyond the league’s minimum requirements of once per week during the season and hasn’t been made available to answer any questions since the days leading up to the Eagles’ playoff loss to Seattle last January. We might have to wait at least another month for his take on what he has at linebacker and everything else. The Eagles’ de facto base defense involves the use of five defensive backs (nickel), which means only two linebackers are on the field around 70% of the time. When they add a sixth defensive back, another linebacker comes off.

Still, linebacker is the top question mark for this team and a potential weak link in 2020.