Eagles Believe Defensive Tackle Is 'Just Hitting His Stride'

A day after the Eagles decided to pick up the fifth-year option on Jordan Davis’s rookie contract, Howie Roseman went on the 94WIP afternoon show and shed some light on why they did it.

“We think he is just hitting his stride,” said the Eagles general manager. “This guy is going to play really good football for us here. He’s an unbelievable person, worker, leader, and I think the sky’s the limit for him.

“I think that he feels it, and he’s got tremendous confidence, and I’m excited for our fans to understand why we thought was a really easy decision for us to pick up the option.”

Davis is scheduled to make $12.9 million in 2026, the final year of the deal. The Eagles could try to negotiate a more team-friendly deal over the next two years. The team on Thursday opted to decline to pick up the option for offensive lineman Kenyon Green, and last week declined to pick up receiver Jahan Dotson's fifth-year option.

Roseman said a big part of the decision on Davis was how much his game improved as last year went along, culminating in two postseason sacks, one in the Super Bowl win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

“When you watch Jordan and how he looked the second half of the season, and that’s a big part of it, how he looked,” said Roseman. “He was in great physical condition and shape. He was disruptive during the playoff run. We forget again, players still develop. When you look at the history of defensive tackles in the National Football League, you see a lot of successful guys that people forget it took until year three or four to really hit their stride.”

Crazy as it seems, Jordan Davis is one of the “elder” statesmen on the defense, and he just turned 25 in January. Only two of the team’s perceived starters are over 25 – Reed Blankenship, who just turned 26, and Zack Baun, who turned 28 in December.

Two other starting candidates are over 25 – Bryce Huff (26) and Adoree Jackson (29).

“We really have a young defensive football team, a young defensive football team with a lot of players that played championship caliber football,” said Roseman. “So that’s exciting. You’re not worried about going into a season and worried about pressure moments with these guys, because a lot of these guys have won world championships, a lot of the guys we brought in here have a championship pedigree. That makes you excited that it won’t be too big.”