Eagles notebook: Azeez Ojulari getting his chance now
Azeez Ojulari had to wait his turn.
The veteran edge rusher signed with the Eagles in free agency but he fell behind on the depth chart this summer. And even though he made the team, Ojulari was inactive for the first four games of the season.
“It was tough at first but it’s all part of the game,” Ojulari said this week. “You just take it one day at a time and try to stay positive. That’s all you can really do. Just keep working hard every day, just knowing your time will come. Just be prepared.”
During the first month of the season, Ojulari tried to keep a positive attitude despite his role. And now he’s a big part of the Eagles’ defense after three different edge rushers are out of the picture.
Ojulari, 25, has been active the last two weeks, playing a combined 63 snaps against the Broncos and Giants. And after the retirement of Za’Darius Smith this week, that role isn’t going to decrease.
In fact, the Eagles have just four healthy edge rushers after starting the season with seven. In addition to Za’Darius Smith’s retirement, Nolan Smith and Ogbo Okoronkwo are on Injured Reserve with triceps injuries — although Nolan Smith is expected to return in a few weeks.
“It’s tough, you know,” Ojulari said. “You don’t ever want to see your brother go down or your teammates go down. But at the end of the day, it’s a part of the game that we play. Stuff happened. You just gotta find ways to stay together as a team and continue to improve. Whoever’s in there, just listen to the coaches and try to play up to standard.”
While Ojulari hasn’t had a sack in his first two games of 2025 — sacks have been hard to come by for that entire group — he has made some plays. He has 6 tackles, 3 QB pressures and 3 stops.
Eagles edge rushers this season have a combined 2 1/2 sacks and 1 1/2 belong to a guy who just retired.
“Everyone wants the sacks and stuff,” Ojulari said, “but when you come in every day as a competitor and do your job, they’re going to come. They come in bunches.”
Accountability still exists
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was pretty clear with his message during his Monday conference call: The Eagles aren’t interesting in casting blame; they’re more interested in solutions. And, in a public setting, that’s understandable.
But we have always heard that the Eagles stress accountability behind the scenes. For years, we have heard about how in team meetings, they’ll flash the number of a player responsible on the screen if there’s a mistake. Accountability for players and coaches is important and has been integral to the Eagles’ success under Sirianni.
So on Wednesday, Sirianni was asked if the accountability part of his program has been the same despite the hesitance to publicly blame. Sirianni shook his head and gave a one-work answer: “Yeah.”
But throughout the rest of his press conference, the Eagles’ head coach referenced that question two more times.
He went back to it when asked about Jalen Hurts’ taking ownership: “To answer your question [further], accountability, that’s never changed of coming in here and telling the truth off the tape, and then going and fixing those issues as the week goes on. I felt that not only from Jalen, I felt that from all of our guys, and that’s a mindset that’s huge.”
And again when asked about the idea of players over plays: “I think I’ve been very clear [about] when we need to do a better job of helping the guys be in positions to succeed, and then we have to execute. It’s never just a one thing. One, ‘This is it.’ You’re identifying issues.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t share those issues in here, but to go back again to Dave’s point, it’s not like you identify issues and then you stay quiet about it, right? That’s the accountability piece going in there. It’s always going to come down to, ‘Did we help them make plays? Did we get our percentage as coaches, and did we execute?’”
An old friend
Five years is a long time in the NFL and that’s very apparent as the Eagles get ready to face Carson Wentz this weekend. So it’s not surprising Wentz said this game doesn’t have a ton of extra meaning for him.
“Maybe earlier in my career, maybe had a different feeling,” Wentz said to reporters in Minnesota this week. “But at the same time, you look over there and I’m not even sure there’s anybody on the defensive side that I played with. It just looks different. It’s another opponent.
“Lot of respect for those guys. There’s still guys in that organization, there’s a lot of good people that I still have a lot of care for and respect for but at the same time, that feels like multiple lifetimes ago at this point.”
Wentz is right. There aren’t many players on the 2025 Eagles roster who were teammates with him in his last season here in 2020. The only guy on defense is Marcus Epps, who left for a couple seasons and returned this year. In total, there are eight players on the Eagles’ 53-man roster who were teammates with Wentz in Philly: Jalen Hurts, Dallas Goedert, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Brett Toth, Matt Pryor, Jake Elliott and Epps.
On Wednesday, Wentz admitted he has grown up a lot and has a different appreciation for things “that maybe I wish I would have had back then.”
The Eagles drafted Wentz with the No. 2 overall pick in 2016 and he was an MVP candidate in 2017 before tearing his ACL in Los Angeles. He watched Nick Foles win a Super Bowl in his place and he never reached that peak again. Eventually, the Eagles drafted Jalen Hurts in the second round of the 2020 draft and we know how the rest of that story unfolded for Wentz. The Vikings are Wentz’s fifth different team since he was with the Eagles.
How does he look back at his time in Philly?
“I’m thankful for it,” Wentz said. “They went and got me at a high pick, all the things. It was quite a roller coaster over there. Winning the Super Bowl, even though I was hurt, right here in this stadium. I’m thankful for so many things. I grew up as a man, got married, had a kid while I was there. So there’s so many life changes that took place there. Grateful for my time there. Obviously, it came to an end rather abruptly, all the things, everybody knows all that. But grateful for all the opportunities I had when I was there.”
A heavy workload
Vic Fangio gave a one-word answer this week when asked if he has seen a cumulative effect from the number of snaps his defense has been playing in recent weeks.
“No,” Fangio said.
But it’s a fair question. While the Eagles are coming off a mini bye week, in their previous three games they played 72 snaps against the Buccaneers, 74 against the Broncos and 69 against the Giants. That three-game total of 215 is the most of any three-game span under Fangio. Although, it is worth pointing out the Eagles played 212 in the first three games of their playoff run in 2024.
The Eagles are averaging 67.0 snaps per game this season, which ranks 10th in the NFL. For reference, The Steelers lead the league with 72.2 snaps per game and the Falcons are last at 55.4.
So the Eagles are playing more than the NFL average in snaps and their per-game total is at 67.0 this year after they averaged just 61.6 snaps per game last year. That doesn’t seem like a lot but over the course of the season, that’s an extra 91.8 snaps.
Comfortable outside
The Eagles’ second cornerback situation has been unsettled all season, but Cooper DeJean has looked good when he plays outside. And the second-year defensive back is getting more comfortable with his reps as a boundary corner.
“I’d play wherever they put me,” DeJean said. “Obviously, I’ve played a little bit more outside these last few weeks, us being in base more. I feel like I’m getting more and more comfortable out there. But if they put me out there, I feel like I’d have no problem moving outside if that was the case.”
In Week 6 the Eagles stayed in their base defense quite a bit and DeJean played 22 snaps at wide corner, according to ProFootballFocus. That’s his highest snap total at that position in his young career. DeJean played just 8 snaps outside his entire rookie year.
Here’s a breakdown of DeJean’s snaps this season:
Slot corner: 259
Wide corner: 72
Box: 52
D-line: 14
Free safety: 1
Eagles notebook: Azeez Ojulari getting his chance now
