Jordan Davis Is Finally Playing Like the Elite Monster We Were Promised
Let’s be honest for a second. When you draft a human being who is roughly the size of a small sedan in the first round, you aren’t exactly expecting him to move with the grace of a ballerina. You expect him to eat space, occupy double teams, and generally make life miserable for anyone foolish enough to run up the middle. But apparently, nobody gave Jordan Davis that memo.
The Philadelphia Eagles’ mammoth defensive tackle decided that simply being an immovable object wasn’t enough; he wanted to be an irresistible force, too. After a performance against the Detroit Lions that can only be described as “volleyball practice,” Davis has finally earned the recognition that fans in Philly have been screaming for.
Davis dominates the passing lanes against Detroit
If you are Jared Goff, you probably woke up Monday morning in a cold sweat, seeing giant hands in your nightmares. In the Eagles’ gritty 16-9 win over the Lions in Week 11, Davis was an absolute menace. But here is the funny part—he didn’t do it by burying the quarterback into the turf every play. He did it by turning into a 340-pound Dikembe Mutombo.
Davis was named the NFC Defensive Player of the Week, a career-first for the big man, largely because he decided the line of scrimmage was a “no-fly zone.” He batted down three of Goff’s passes. Three. For context, some defensive backs don’t get three pass breakups in a month. One of those massive swats popped the ball straight into the air, allowing Cooper DeJean to snag an interception that eventually led to a Jake Elliott field goal. In a game decided by one score, that tip drill was everything.
A defensive tackle playing center field
It isn’t just a one-week fluke, either. Davis is currently tied for the NFL lead among defensive linemen in pass deflections with six. He is sitting right there next to Cameron Heyward, a four-time All-Pro. That is rare air for a guy whose critics claimed didn’t have the motor to stay on the field.
Whatever is being put into the water down in Georgia needs to be studied, because Davis wasn’t alone. His former Bulldog teammate, Jalen Carter, swatted two passes himself. That’s five batted balls from the interior defensive line. It’s honestly unfair. How is an offense supposed to establish a rhythm when they have to throw the ball over a literal wall of humanity?
Silencing the conditioning critics
We have to address the elephant in the room, or rather, the conditioning concerns that have dogged Davis since he entered the league. The narrative was always the same: “He’s great for 15 snaps, but then he needs an oxygen tank.”
Well, you can go ahead and delete those tweets now. Davis has completely flipped the script this season. He is in the best shape of his life, and the numbers support it. Last year, he was wheezing his way through just 37 percent of the defensive snaps. This year? He’s clocking in at 60 percent. He is the only Eagle to play in all 49 games since the start of the 2022 season. That isn’t just showing up; that is reliability.
Head Coach Nick Sirianni, never one to shy away from praising his guys, noted that Davis fought through the ups and downs and ignored the “instant gratification” culture of the NFL. It’s a nice way of saying the kid put in the work when things got tough, and now he is cashing the checks.
Making history in Philadelphia
This award puts Davis in some seriously elite company. He is the first Eagles interior lineman to take home Defensive Player of the Week honors since Fletcher Cox did it back in 2018. When your name is being mentioned in the same breath as Fletch, Jerome Brown, and Corey Simon, you are doing something right.
But here is the kicker that makes this season so bizarrely impressive for him: this isn’t even his first weekly award of the year. Remember Week 3? Davis won the NFC Special Teams Player of the Week. Yes, the nose tackle blocked a field goal against the Rams. So, to recap, the guy is winning awards for blocking kicks and batting down passes. At this rate, they might as well put him in at tight end and see if he can catch a fade route in the end zone.
The Eagles made the right call
There was a time when picking up the fifth-year option in Davis’ contract felt like a bit of a gamble. Now? It looks like a steal. He is signed through 2026, and if he keeps playing with this level of disruption, the Eagles front office is going to have to back up the Brinks truck for a long-term extension sooner rather than later.
For a player whose career started with whispers of “bust” and questions about his stamina, Davis is having the last laugh. He’s big, he’s conditioned, and he’s swatting passes like flies at a picnic. Good luck to the rest of the NFC.
