That’s right, gone are the days of Fletcher Cox manning the middle, a veteran secondary loaded with experienced talent, and whatever middle-of-their-career linebacker Howie Roseman could find in week two of free agency, and in their place are a bunch of players in their 20s, many of whom are still on their rookie-scale contracts.

Is this a benefit or an issue for an Eagles team with Super Bowl aspirations? Well, in the opinion of Nick Sirianni, it falls somewhere in the middle, with youthful energy often coming with inexperience, but overall, he likes the direction things are going because his players will only get better with more experience.

“Obviously when you play together you gel together, you get more time together. The more plays you play in this league, the more you see, the more football IQ you’re going to gain. When you watch the Bulls documentary, Michael Jordan talked about the game against the Celtics when he scored 63 points, he’s like, ‘I just let my youth and energy go, and I didn’t stop.’ He said something like that. I kind of felt that, especially seeing [DB Cooper DeJean] Coop on the field. I just saw his youth and his energy,” Sirianni told reporters.

“Now, did we make some mistakes? Sure, we made some mistakes. But I saw him flying to the football. I saw him being physical and violent when he got to the football. And that’s for a lot of the guys, but I’m thinking about Coop in my mind right now. When that happens, that can be really exciting because you’ve got youth and energy just flying around to the football. But it’s our job as coaches and their job as players to learn the plan, try to put themselves in situations. We try to put them in situations so that we’re accelerating that play as much as we possibly can as far as the football IQ goes. And that’s where walkthrough comes in, and practice comes in.”

After barely playing defense in Weeks 1-4, DeJean really had a breakout effort in Week 6 against the Cleveland Browns, putting in work in coverage, as a blitzer, and as a punt returner for good measure, too. Even if he had a mistake or two along the way, it’s hard to say he didn’t bring some excitement to a game that desperately needed it and shouldn’t remain in the slot for the foreseeable future as a result.

Vic Fangio admits to some Eagles defensive growing pains

Asked in his own media availability session about the youth on display weekly in the Eagles’ defense, Vic Fangio admitted that he has had to change things up a bit to adjust to the inexperience of his players but hopes that they can find a happy medium that works for everyone.

“Yeah. The makeup of your squad always affects how you call it. That’s not the only place where we have young players, either. Our two inside linebackers are young. [LB Zack] Baun is a veteran, but he never played inside linebacker until he got here. [LB] Nakobe [Dean] is a third-year player, but this is the first year he’s playing. Nolan Smith, we’ve talked about, really the first year he’s playing, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, the makeup of your team, you can’t ignore it. You’ve got to try and find the right fit that fits everybody.”

On paper, it makes sense that Sirianni would be a little more optimistic than Fangio when he isn’t the one coaching up the players weekly. But then again, if even an old-school DC like Fangio is willing to make it work with the cards he’s dealt, maybe there’s still hope for the Eagles’ defense yet.