Biggest Eagles questions by position coming back from 2025 bye week

As the Eagles return from their Week 9 bye week, here are the biggest questions at each position on the roster.

By Dave Zangaro • Published November 6, 2025

The Eagles are in a good spot at 6-2 and atop the standings in the NFC as they come back from their Week 9 bye week.

The next few games are tough but the Eagles have put themselves in position to not only win the division but also lock up one of the top seeds in the conference. But there are still questions with every team.

Here’s one Eagles question at each position for the rest of the 2025 season: 

Quarterback: Will Jalen Hurts enter the MVP race?

It’s no surprise that the two games the Eagles lost in the first half of the season were two of Jalen Hurts’ worst games so far. Because with a strong couple performances before the bye week and because there’s no one running away with the NFL’s MVP award this season, Hurts has a legitimate chance to make a run at it.

Here are his numbers through the first half of the season: 70.2%, 1,677 yards, 15 TDs, 1 INT, passer rating of 114.4; 207 rushing yards, 5 touchdowns. He hasn’t thrown for a bunch of yards but he has been incredibly efficient.

Hurts was the runner-up for the MVP award in 2022 behind Patrick Mahomes, who secured 48 of 50 first-place votes that season. Mahomes is again one of the top favorites to win the award but Hurts should definitely be in the conversation. Here’s a look at the odds for the top 10 from FanDuel:

Josh Allen: +150
Drake Maye: +400
Patrick Mahomes: +430
Matthew Stafford: +500
Justin Herbert: +2000
Sam Darnold: +2000
Baker Mayfield: +2000
Jalen Hurts: +2200
Jordan Love: +2200
Lamar Jackson: +3000

Running back: Is Saquon Barkley about to turn his season around?

Before the Eagles broke for their bye week, Saquon Barkley had his best game of the 2025 season, rushing for 150 yards and a touchdown on just 14 attempts. It was his first time over 100 yards all season. And with that one game, his average yards-per-attempt went from 3.3 to 4.1. He has a chance to keep that going in the second half. Even though Barkley’s numbers are down this season after an incredible 2,000-yard performance in 2024, it never really seemed like his fault. The offensive line hasn’t been elite in 2025 and those giant holes haven’t really been there.

While Barkley raised his hand to take accountability for the struggles plenty of times during the first half of the season, it was pretty difficult to pin those struggles on him. After seeing him break out in a major way in Week 8, there has to be some hope that he’ll be able to do that more often in the final nine games of the regular season and into the playoffs. Even with all those struggles, Barkley after Week 8 was still 10th in the NFL in rushing. He has a chance to climb that list in the second half of the season.

Wide receiver: Can the Eagles keep A.J. Brown happy?

A.J. Brown missed the Eagles’ final game before the bye week with a hamstring injury and the offense had its best performance of the season. Some looked at that and thought the Eagles don’t need Brown to have an explosive offense. But the Eagles should look at that and think about how dangerous this offense could be when Brown is back. There has been plenty of drama swirling around the Eagles’ star receiver this season and plenty of cryptic social media posts fueling that drama and speculation about his unhappiness with his role and/or his relationship with Jalen Hurts. It’s all a bit tiring. But for the sake of the team, Eagles fans just have to hope that Brown and the Eagles are able to overcome this drama, keep him happy and keep winning games. 

Could DeVonta Smith be a really good No. 1 receiver? Yeah, absolutely. But the beauty of this offense is that the Eagles have two stud receivers. The franchise searched for years to find one of those guys. And now that they have two, they should desperately want to keep them together for as long as possible. That doesn’t mean Brown isn’t somewhat justified if he’s unhappy with how the Eagles are using him. In seven games this season, Brown has just 29 catches for 395 yards and 3 touchdowns. But he’s still one of the best receivers in the NFL and they’re going to need him.

Tight end: Will Dallas Goedert continue to thrive in red zone?

There was a time this offseason where it seemed very unlikely Dallas Goedert would be back with the Eagles for the 2025 season. Good thing they figured it out. Because Goedert has again been an important part of the Eagles’ offense this season. In just seven games, he has 30 catches for 289 yards and 7 touchdowns. While he’s averaging fewer yards per game than he has in any of the last five seasons, he has become a huge threat in the red zone with some inventive play designs. Those seven touchdowns are already a career-high, surpassing his previous career-high of five from the 2019 season.

Those seven receiving touchdowns tie him for second in the NFL among all players with Amon-Ra St. Brown and just one behind Davante Adams, who leads the NFL with eight. Jalen Hurts this season has 15 touchdown passes and 7 of them have gone to Goedert — the next closest player on the team is A.J. Brown with 3. The Eagles’ record for receiving touchdowns by a tight end in a season is Pete Retzlaff with 10 back in 1965; that record is very much in danger.

Offensive line: Can the starters stay healthy?

The Eagles’ offensive line this season has been good but it hasn’t been elite like we’re used to seeing. And health seems to be the main culprit. Both Cam Jurgens and Landon Dickerson have been dealing with multiple injuries this season and neither has played at their 2024 Pro Bowl level consistently. So the hope has to be that the Week 9 bye week came at the perfect time to heal up the interior of the Eagles’ offensive line and get them back on track. 

Before the bye week, Dickerson had what was probably his best game of the season, especially in the run game, against the Giants. That’s a good sign that he was starting to get healthier and the bye week should have only helped that. Jurgens, meanwhile, sat out the Giants game with a knee injury. But even before that injury, he hadn’t been playing to his 2024 standard and it was likely a result of having offseason back surgery. The hope for Jurgens has to be that the bye week helped his knee heal and that his back will keep feeling better the further removed he is from that offseason surgery. If both of these guys play better in the second half, the Eagles’ line has a chance to be dominant yet again.

Defensive tackle: Is Jalen Carter ready to turn back into a monster?

This is Jalen Carter’s third NFL season, which means he’ll become eligible for a contract extension at the conclusion of the regular season. We talked all offseason about how huge that number was going to be and it probably still will be. But this hasn’t been the greatest season so far for Carter. He missed the opener when he spit on Dak Prescott before his first snap and he missed the first Giants game with a heel injury. On top of that, he has been dealing with a lingering shoulder injury and Vic Fangio didn’t hesitate to point out earlier in the season that Carter wasn’t in peak shape. In 6 games this season, Carter has just 1 sack, 15 tackles, 2 TFLs and 9 QB hits.

But in the last couple of weeks Carter has been playing better and appears to be in better shape than he was at the beginning of the season.Against the Vikings, Carter played 97% of the Eagles’ snaps and he would have likely been up over 90% against the Giants in Week 8 had the Eagles not been able to build a huge lead. The Eagles are getting good play from Moro Ojomo and Jordan Davis this season but Carter is still the engine of this Eagles defense. And if he rounds into form over the last couple months of the season, it’s going to help a ton.

Edge rusher: How much will Jaelan Phillips help?

It was obvious this season that the edge rusher position was a weakness on this roster, but it’s going to look very different in the second half of the season as the Eagles add Jaelan Phillips, Brandon Graham and Nolan Smith to the mix. In fact, the Eagles might have been able to turn a weakness into a strength by trading for Phillips, luring Graham out of retirement and hopefully getting Smith back from Injured Reserve.

The most intrigue revolves around Phillips. The Eagles sent a 2026 third-round pick to Miami to bring him to Philly and there’s no question the 26-year-old is talented. He has dealt with injuries in his NFL career that have prevented him from reaching his ceiling and played in just four games last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury. But Phillips was able to start all nine games with the Dolphins this season and played 73% of their defensive snaps. His numbers aren’t going to wow you but all 3 of his sacks and all 7 of his QB hits have come in the last 5 games. And he is reuniting with Vic Fangio, who coached him in 2023. That season, before tearing his Achilles, Phillips had 6 1/2 sacks in 8 games.

Linebacker: How will the Eagles find snaps for all three?

As far as problems go, this is a really good one to have. The Eagles have three legitimate starting linebackers, but it won’t be super easy to find playing time for all of them. Zack Baun obviously isn’t going to leave the field. The All-Pro is playing at that same high level in 2025. In 8 games, Baun already has 64 tackles, 3 sacks, 1 INT, 5 TFLs, 4 QB hits and a forced fumble. He is proving to be worth that three-year contract extension the Eagles gave him in early March. 

What’s tougher to figure out is how the snaps are going to be split up between veteran Nakobe Dean and rookie Jihaad Campbell. The Eagles began the 2025 season with Campbell as the full-time starter next to Baun while Dean was on the PUP list. But Dean returned to the defense against the Vikings and has played well the last two games. The Eagles were able to play Campbell on the edge but as they add Jaelan Phillips, Nolan Smith and Brandon Graham to the rotation, there won’t be much of a need to play Campbell on the edge anymore. But he’s still a really talented rookie who needs playing time. The easiest answer is to play Dean on base downs because of his ability to stop the run and then split up the nickel reps between Dean and Campbell.

Cornerback: Who ends up being the CB2?

We’re eight games into the 2025 season and we’re still talking about that CB2 position. The hope dating back to training camp was that Kelee Ringo was simply going to run away with that job but that hasn’t happened. Ringo and Adoree’ Jackson split most of those reps in the first half of the season and Jakorian Bennett wasn’t able to really get in the mix because of a pec injury; but he’s now nearing a return from IR. And then last week, GM Howie Roseman pulled off trades for Jaire Alexander and Michael Carter II. And even though Cooper DeJean might be the best nickel cornerback in the NFL, he has shown an ability on base downs to play outside. Would the Eagles consider a full-time move?

There are a bunch of ways this could turn out. It could be Ringo or Jackson or Bennett or Alexander as simple plug-and-play options. Although, Ringo and Jackson have so far failed to take ownership of the role. DC Vic Fangio admitted recently that his evaluation of Bennett is incomplete because he just hasn’t seen enough of him; maybe the Eagles give him that chance. Alexander is a two-time Pro Bowler but the 28-year-old hasn’t been at that level since 2022 and played in just two games for the Ravens this season. The other option is to play DeJean outside. The Eagles have been hesitant to do that because of his importance to the defense in the middle of the field but also because the Eagles didn’t have a viable replacement at the nickel corner position. They might now have that with the addition of Carter.

Safety: Will Drew Mukuba find more consistency?

The Eagles began the season with Sydney Brown and Drew Mukuba splitting reps at the safety position next to Reed Blankenship but it didn’t take long for Mukuba to wrestle away the full-time gig. Since Week 4, Mukuba has played just about every defensive snap with mixed results. He has made some big plays with 2 interceptions, 3 pass breakups and 2 tackles for loss. But he has also missed some tackles and given up plays too. Back on Oct. 21, Vic Fangio called Mukuba’s season "uneven,” which is a fair assessment of his play. But Mukuba is a 22-year-old second-round pick so the hope should be that he’ll find that consistency the more he plays in the NFL.

And if he’s able to find that consistency, it would probably help Blankenship too. The veteran captain of the secondary has been solid but unspectacular this season. Fangio called Blankenship a "rock” of the secondary. "He's got a rookie safety next to him,” Fangio said. "His importance to the defense is more than just what you see from the playing part of it. He's the signal caller back there and keeps everybody calm.” If Mukuba is able to find that consistency, it could be a key to getting a higher level of play out of the secondary in general.

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