Well, this was a bit of a surprise.
Jordan Davis, the Philadelphia Eagles 13th overall pick in this year's NFL draft, played just 22 of the team's 69 defensive snaps (32%) in Sunday's 38-35 Week 1 win over the Detroit Lions.
Davis' college teammate, linebacker Nakobe Dean—the Eagles' third round pick—played just three snaps in his first NFL game.
Davis, a 6'6" 340-pound highly touted defensive tackle, did play rotationally at Georgia, but much of that was often credited to the team's big leads.
In his first NFL regular season game, it was certainly surprising to see Davis play just 22 snaps, seven less than 2021 sixth-round pick Marlon Tuipulotu.
Here are the Eagles' defensive tackle snap counts:
Fletcher Cox: 39 snaps (57%)
Javon Hargrave: 38 snaps (55%)
Milton Williams: 33 snaps (48%)
Marlon Tuipulotu: 29 snaps (42%)
Jordan Davis: 22 snaps (32%)
As for Dean, he's behind starting linebackers T.J. Edwards, Haason Reddick, and Kyzir White on the depth chart, so playing time might be even tougher to find for Dean. But three snaps is certainly less than expected.
Here are the Eagles' linebacker snap counts:
T.J. Edwards: 69 snaps (100%)
Kyzir White: 51 snaps (74%)
Haason Reddick: 47 snaps (68%)
Patrick Johnson: 8 snaps (12%)
Nakobe Dean: 3 snaps (4%)
Ultimately, the Eagles defense allowed 35 points in the win, recording just one sack on Jared Goff which came from Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox on a botched snap.
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"[The Lions] got a fast start, we had a punt he first drive as well," Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Monday when asked about the defensive performance.
"And then the defense really settled in. They forced three three and outs in a row and then got a pick six. My talk with the defense is like, 'Hey let's get some stops here.' We felt like they couldn't stop on offense. 'We're gonna get a lead and you're gonna play with a lead the rest of the way.' And that's precisely what happened. The defense allowed us to get that lead. Now, we didn't finish good as we all know. We've got to clean up a lot of things on defense, as far as the run game and some of the things like that, but we'll get those things corrected. It's always better to fix them after a win than after a loss."
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