Eagles Safety Called Top Breakout Candidate

The Philadelphia Eagles had a clear reason why they wanted to move on from Chauncey Gardner-Johnson this offseason. His cap hit was just something the team didn't want to deal with as they prepared to pay some of their younger stars coming off their rookie deals. 

There was another, underrated reason why the Eagles traded Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans, though. 

Former third-round safety Sydney Brown. 

Despite playing sparingly in his first two seasons, Brown is a player that the Eagles front office is very high on going into 2025. He is able to negotiate a long-term deal after this season is over. 

Instead of putting him on the bench in 2025, the Eagles have opened a spot for him to earn this season. And that makes him, according to Pro Football Focus' Jonathon Macri, a top breakout candidate this season. 

"Brown will have some competition for a starting role after the team drafted Andrew Mukuba in the third round of this year’s draft, but Brown – a 2023 third-round pick – has seniority and experience in the NFL and in Vic Fangio’s defense, which should give him the upper hand," Macri wrote. "Brown took on a starting role as a rookie before suffering an injury, which led to just one start in 2024, coming in Week 18 when he posted a 92.0 overall grade and 90.4 coverage grade."

Philadelphia will not simply give Brown the starting safety job. As always, he will have to earn it going into the offseason and in training camp. 

But there's a reason the Eagles are very high on the Illinois product. And it is because they believe he can be the kind of Pro Bowl starter that Gardner-Johnson once was on their team.