December 22, 2025
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
Jordan Davis has become a crucial part of the Eagles' defensive line.
There was a jovial voice chiming in over Brandon Graham's shoulder.
A week ago, the veteran Eagles edge rusher came up with two sacks in the 38-0 shutout of the Raiders, after he had made a move to the inside of the defensive line to compensate for the injury loss of Jalen Carter.
He was the star of the show. Media swarmed his locker afterward wanting every soundbite, and on his right while he spoke was Jordan Davis at his own locker, yelling over into the scrum and hyping Graham up as his new guy on the inside.
The spotlight, understandably, was all Graham's that day, as an Eagles legend who came out of retirement and made the absence of the team's best pass rusher not sting nearly as bad with his best performance since coming back – and all out of his usual position.
But then there was Davis on his right in the locker room, as an always big presence whose play on the interior this season maybe deserved just as big of a spotlight, too.
In Saturday's 29-18 Eagles win over the Commanders down in Landover, the fourth-year defensive tackle commanded it.
Davis made six tackles during the NFC East clincher, with two of them for a loss, often disrupting a Commanders run game that, at this point in their season, was really all the Washington offense had left to lean on.
But Davis helped to ensure that they couldn't, in a year where he has continually played his best football, which in turn, might've made him an irreplaceable part of the Eagles' defense that they'll need to keep long-term.
Jordan Davis has worked up to the most snaps played and the most sacks recorded of his NFL career so far.
Following Saturday's win, Davis' nine tackles for a loss lead the team, his 4.5 sacks are by far a new career best and trail only fellow defensive tackle Moro Ojomo's 5.0 for the most on the Eagles. His 62 percent of the defensive snaps played through 16 weeks (605) are also easily the most of his career.
He's always been a run stuffer ever since the Eagles drafted him 13th overall out of Georgia in 2022, and a rare kind of one who has shown that he can be agile within his 6'6", 330-plus pound frame. But in the years prior, Davis' high marks as an Eagle always seemed to come with some kind of negative, usually in regards to his season-long conditioning.
And that left Davis in a pivotal spot in his pro career coming into the 2025 season.
Back in April, the Eagles exercised the fifth-year option on his rookie contract, essentially buying a year to decide whether to extend him long term after failing to fully realize his first-round status as a dominant force in the trenches through his first few seasons.
By comparison, DeVonta Smith, the Eagles' star receiver and 2021 first-rounder, got a contract extension after his third season – the first offseason he was eligible for one.
He seemed to have fully taken that to heart.
Davis came into training camp late in the summer looking noticeably leaner, and while he had always been an infectious personality in the locker room, his sense of leadership seemed to have taken a step forward, too.
Then he got on the field when the season finally started, and stayed on it. He was blowing up blocks, chasing ball carriers down, swatting down passes and even field goals that decided games, and when Carter went out, he helped make it genuinely hard to notice these past couple of weeks within an Eagles' defense that might just be hitting its stride everywhere else.
Davis worked from the cusp of potentially being on his way out of Philadelphia in the summer to being the linchpin of its defense at the line of scrimmage late into the season, when the Eagles likely needed one the most.
And that effort has commanded a big spotlight, a handsome new contract more than likely, too.
It's going to be on the Eagles now to ensure that he signs it here, if and when.
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