Eagles Top 25 Best Players Countdown: A Linebacker With Boom-Or-Bust Potential

Still just 26, the free-agent signing has big boom potential after he let his contract impact his performance in Tampa last year.

Dec 24, 2023; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Devin White (45) celebrates a sack against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Raymond James Stadium: Jeremy Reper-USA TODAY Sports / Jeremy Reper-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA – He could be a boom-or-bust free-agent signing. All signs point to boom, though.

Linebacker Devin White is just 26 and coming off a season in Tampa where he worried more about his contract and his performance suffered. Injuries didn’t help, either.

Now, he is at a crossroads of a career that began as the fifth overall draft pick in 2019, and playing on a low-level deal hoping to prove he is the same player who appeared ticketed for stardom early in his Buccaneers career.

For all those reasons, White will be a boom for an Eagles defense in need of good linebacker play and is ranked No. 17 on our list of the top 25 best Eagles heading into the season.

“I don’t know if I needed a change of scenery, but I feel like it was definitely good, a breath of fresh air to be able to start over and work my way from the ground up,” said White. “There’s nothing like a life-humbling experience and I feel like what I went through last year was very humbling for me.

“It put me back to the root of everything where I want to build myself back up. I know I can do it. I did it coming out of high school. I did it coming out of college. I did it when I first got in the NFL and it’s time to do it again.”

Eagles LB Devin White / John McMullen/Eagles SI

The list has become an annual affair put together by SI.com’s Eagles reporters Ed Kracz and John McMullen. The two submit their top 25 lists at the same time so each would be unaffected by the others. No. 1 on the list is awarded 25 points and so on down the list with No. 25 receiving one point.

Kracz thought more highly of White’s boom potential than McMullen, awarding the linebacker 12 points after ranking him No. 14 on his list. McMullen had him at No. 20. The total points White received was 18.

The list so far looks like this:

No. 25: Kelee Ringo

No. 24 Cooper DeJean

No. 23: Isaiah Rodgers

No. 22: Avonte Maddox

No. 21: Brandon Graham

No. 20: Mekhi Becton

No. 19: Milton Williams

No. 18: Cam Jurgens

White could end up not just being a starting linebacker in Vic Fangio’s defense, but he could develop into the defensive coordinator’s designated pass rusher (DPR) given the fact that White has 23 career sacks in five seasons on his resume.

It’s a skill set White said he is hoping to show Fangio he can has when training camp begins with players reporting on July 23.

Whatever he ends up doing, cornerback Darius Slay recently went on Chris Long’s “Green Light” podcast and expressed happiness over general manager Howie Roseman’s decision to sign White in the offseason.

Long prefaced his question to Slay about White by saying, “You need guys who can make plays sideline to sideline (and) it was something that was missing a bit last year at that level of defense, and White can do that.”

“He’s very athletic, faster than what you think, big guy, too,” said Slay. “I was excited by that signing. I kind of had a vision right after we played Tampa a little bit, said, ‘Man if Devin becomes a free agent I could see him coming over here,’ just because I feel this is a fit for him.

“We needed a linebacker. You been here, we’re D-line driven. They need linebackers who hit and run and he does a good job of that. And he can cover. That’s one thing besides, we had T.J. Edwards, I thought he was amazing, him and Kyzir (White) was an amazing combination of run and hit and cover. I think Howie did a great job of finding that with Devin White.”

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