During the offseason, we'll be taking a close look at Philadelphia Eagles players of interest who are currently on the roster but we may not know a lot about just yet. In this edition, we'll take a look at third-year safety Sydney Brown.
PREVIOUS PLAYER REVIEWS
Brown was a core special teamer as a rookie in 2023 who only played 335 snaps in the regular defense, despite the team suffering quite a few injuries at safety. He was oddly buried on the depth chart early in the season behind Band-Aids like Justin Evans and Terrell Edmunds, playing just 16 snaps the first three weeks of the season before missing the next three games with a hamstring injury. When he got extended action in games later in the season, it was typically out of position at slot corner, where he was filling in for Avonte Maddox and Bradley Roby, after guys like Mario Goodrich and Josiah Scott proved to be ineffective.
In the 2023 regular season finale against the Giants, Brown tore an ACL. He missed the entirety of 2024 training camp as well as the first four games of the season. When he returned from injury, Brown was oddly behind Tristin McCollum on the depth chart for the entirety of the season. He played just 79 snaps in the regular defense, more than half of which came in the Eagles' meaningless regular season finale against the Giants.
Brown is a very good gunner on the punt team, and just generally an intense special teams player. His most notable moment of the season came against the Cowboys, when he got into a melee with several Cowboys players. Brown was ejected from that game and left to a loud ovation at the Linc.
Brown has ideal athletic measurables, and he seems to love to play football, but for whatever reason, two consecutive defensive staffs have had oddball players higher than him in the safety pecking order.
I watched all of Brown's 2024 snaps to see how he looked in his limited playing time.
Coverage
Let's start with the good. He sealed the meaningless Week 18 win over the Giants with an INT. Giants WR Jalin Hyatt is looking over his left shoulder, then his right, then his left again, and this is really just ugly offense, but credit Brown for stepping in front of this throw to seal the game.
In the same game, this Drew Lock pass comes out WAY too late, and Brown swats it away.
But mostly, I found Brown's recognition skills to be shaky. In garbage time in the Eagles' regular season win over the Rams, Matthew Stafford was able to manipulate Brown with his eyes. Brown is playing deep middle. Stafford looks at the tight end running down the right seam, gets Brown to commit, and then hits Cooper Kupp down the left seam for a TD. This is not an easy play for Brown — and the Rams had a good play call for the defense the Eagles were in — but Brown also didn't come remotely close to making a play on this throw.
In the Super Bowl, Brown stayed in his backpedal too long, unaware that the receiver coming his way, Xavier Worthy, ran the fastest 40 time in NFL Combine history. Worthy runs right by Brown for a deep TD. McCollum's coverage wasn't good either, but that doesn't excuse Brown's rep here:
Yuck.
Here he jacks up teammate Isaiah Rodgers, who otherwise likely would have had an INT.
Tackling
As a tackler, I thought Brown was often either out of control or he took bad angles to ballcarriers. Here he takes a bad angle to Cowboys RB Rico Dowdle, and he does actually make a shoestring tackle, but this could have looked really bad if Dowdle could've kept his feet.
Against the Giants below, credit Brown for diagnosing the play and getting there, but what should have been a TFL is instead a 5-yard gain.
Overall
Brown has traits. He is fast, strong, explosive, and he can hit.
However, he does seem to lack recognition skills, and he plays a little out of control.
In the 2025 draft, the Eagles selected another safety with a second-round pick in Andrew Mukuba, who does not have Brown's bulk or explosiveness, but displayed much better awareness in college than Brown ever has. I think the Eagles would love to put Mukuba's brain in Brown's body.
Brown vs. Mukuba should be a fun training camp battle to watch, but if I were to handicap it in May, my strong opinion would be that Vic Fangio will prefer Mukuba's instincts and recognition skills over Brown's physical prowess.
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