Top 25 Current Eagles: RB Kenny Gainwell Kicks Off 2023 Rankings

Third-year running back Kenny Gainwell was the Philadelphia Eagles' best in the backfield during the postseason.

PHILADELPHIA - For the second consecutive year, SI.com’s Eagles Today beat reporters Ed Kracz and John McMullen will be ranking the top 25 Philadelphia Eagles players for the upcoming season in advance of the team's training camp, which is a mere five weeks away with the team set to report on July 25.

This year’s list begins with a third-year running back, who could continue to prove vital to the offense's success despite some new additions to the backfield.

RB Kenny Gainwell

The process behind the top-25 list started with Kracz and McMullen putting together their own top 25 players independent of each other’s rankings and then assigning point values, with 25 points awarded to the player ranked first on each list, 24 to the player ranked second, and so on, with one point going to the player that was put 25th.

The highest ranking from either reporter breaks any ties in the ballot.

Gainwell, 24, did not place on Kracz’s list. but McMullen had the Memphis product at No. 23 overall, giving him three total votes. Second-year offensive lineman Cam Jurgens, who projects to start at right guard this season, also received three votes, with Kracz putting the No. 51 overall pick in the 2022 draft at No. 24 and McMullen placing him at 25.

Gainwell has the highest overall ranking and wins the tiebreaker putting Jurgens on the outside, looking in at No. 26.

A talented back in college at Memphis with a natural feel for catching the football, Gainwell helped lead the Tigers to an AAC Championship with an FBS-leading 2,069 all-purpose yards (1,459 of those rushing) in 2019.

He sat out 2020 due to COVID-19 and that inactivity, along with some concerns over his size (listed at 5-8 and 201 pounds), dropped Gainwell to the fifth round of the 2021 draft.

The Eagles got some solid production out of Gainwell as a rookie. He played in 27 percent of the offensive snaps and contributed 544 all-purpose yards (291 rushing and 253 receiving), along with five touchdowns.

A projected leap in Gainwell’s second season was slow to come. And for the most part, it seemed like the Yazoo City, Miss. native (the same hometown as his cousin Fletcher Cox) seemed to take a step back, at least until late in the season when Gainwell got more opportunities after Miles Sanders suffered a knee injury.

In the Eagles' final three regular-season games, Gainwell had 12 rushes for 57 yards and seven receptions for 65 yards. Once the playoffs arrived, Gainwell provided some juice with his fresh legs, carrying the ball 26 times for 160 yards and a touchdown in the first two postseason wins before adding another seven runs for 21 yards and four catches for 20 yards in the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Gainwell’s playing time went from 28 percent in the regular season to 43 percent in the playoffs and more is expected of the talented back now that Sanders signed with the Carolina Panthers in free agency.

In the spring, it was Gainwell and fellow incumbent Boston Scott who worked with the first team as the Eagles brought along outside acquisitions D’Andre Swift and Rashaad Penny slowly.

The smart money has definitive roles penciled in for Swift and Gainwell in Nick Sirianni’s running back-by-committee approach with Scott, Penny, and Trey Sermon fighting for the rest of the playing time.

“I'm very excited to have these guys [Swift and Penny) in the room,” Gainwell said earlier this spring. “They give a lot of competition and to have new competition in the room and new guys, It's great to have.”

Gainwell, meanwhile, is getting savvier as a professional, understanding what you do in the offseason will pay dividends in the fall.

"[The goal is] just to be stronger, be faster, be a smarter player,” Gainwell said. “Help our team go back to the goal that we had got to last year. … I'm expecting a very high role, you know, just gonna continue to improve my game still on top of everything that I have done.”

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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald, every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen