It’s been a while since the Eagles have had a linebacker quick and savvy enough to be disruptive as a rush the passer. Devin White may be that linebacker, though.
You probably need to go back to the days of Seth Joyner, when the late Buddy Ryan turned him loose in Joyner’s first for years in the league, allowing him to collect 22 sacks in those four years.
When Ryan was fired, Joyner remained a threat to opposing quarterbacks. In his eight years in Philly, he piled up 37 of the 52 he would finish with in his career. His 37 sacks are the ninth-most in team history.
Linebackers have come and gone since Joyner left town after the 1993 season and two consecutive Pro Bowls to play three years with the Arizona Cardinals followed by a year each with the Green ay Packers and Denver Broncos. None have come close to what Joyner put up as a pass rushing linebacker.
Jeremiah Trotter, whose son Jeremiah Trotter, Jr., is a rookie on this year’s Eagles team, had 11 sacks in eight years with the Eagles. More recently, T.J. Edwards and Nigel Bradham, the starting linebacker on the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship team, each had just five in four years here.
Of course, the skill set needs to be married to the scheme to produce another pass-rushing threat from the linebacker post. And defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s scheme doesn’t exactly scream blitz, so any more than a handful of opportunities White might get to chase the QB would be out of character for the first-year DC.
But, and maybe this is an awfully big but, perhaps Fangio sees a skill set that White possessed in his first five seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when he registered 23 sacks. In his second year in the league, he had nine. Two years ago, he had 5.5.
“I feel like coach Vic, if you’re good at something he’s going to make sure he exploits it,” said White. “So, if I’m good at rushing the passer and show I can win, I feel he’ll put a lot of things in to get it going.”
White tried to show Fangio that he can get after the quarterback he can get after the quarterback during the spring.
Interesting, and yet another of the many storylines to watch for when training camp begins next month. And that is one of White’s goals – to show he has that skill set.
“In (spring), I’ve been trying to show him that, but it’s only seven-on-seven so there’s not a whole lot I can do, but my mindset for training camp is to come back and be dominant and anytime I get a pass-rush situation (win), so he can implement that, he said. "At the end of the day, I’m just trying to solidify myself.”
