Philadelphia Eagles roster outlook: Team DE power rankings and grades

Four years after taking Brandon Graham in the first round of 2010’s draft, Philly selected Marcus Smith 26th-overall. Well, that didn’t quite work out in the same fashion, so in 2017, the “Birds” again found themselves in the market for a defensive end, and they rolled the dice on another in the first round. This one’s name was Derek Barnett.

The jury is still out on that decision, even now, but there isn’t a case that can be made that demonstrates Barnett has done enough to warrant all of this confidence the “Birds” have placed in him. It’s sad but true.

What’s worse is often, to justify this decision, you hear things like Derek Barnett broke Reggie White’s sack record with the Tennessee Volunteers, but that’s sort of misleading. Barnett played in 39 games with the Vols as opposed to the 22 games that “The Minister of Defense” spent there.

Remember the strip-sack in the Super Bowl by Graham that we brought up? It was Barnett that wound up with the fumble recovery. Two weeks before that, he came up with a very important strip-sack on Case Keenum during the NFC Championship Game when the Minnesota Vikings were driving to put a dent in Philly’s lead and gain some momentum.

Barnett has flashed here and there, but those moments need to come more frequently, and they just haven’t. Hopefully, this is his breakout season. If it seems like we’ve been saying that since 2018, it’s because we have been. Grade: C