Three Eagles Named To PFF Top 50 Players of 2019

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By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

On Tuesday, Pro Football Focus released the back half, naming all the players ranked 50-101. Read more about the four Eagles named in that half here.

On Saturday night, they released their top 50 players of 2019 and three more Eagles found themselves on the list.

Coming in at number 44 is one of only two defensive players to be named in the top 101.

Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox appears on the list for the sixth time in his eight seasons in the NFL.

Cox did not have the type of dominant season that many were hoping for, especially when the original plan was for Malik Jackson, Tim Jernigan and Hassan Ridgeway to play alongside him before all the injuries happened.

Cox came away with just 40 tackles and 3.5 sacks over this season, but was a major force in the Eagles nearly beating the Seahawks in the playoffs with a 40-year-old backup quarterback that only had one hamstring to stand on.

His drop in production over the regular season reflects in his drop to 44 as he was all the way up at number five at the end of last season.

The Eagles will hope that a healthy Malik Jackson will help Cox to have another huge season in 2020.

Coming in at number 34 is Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson.

PFF mentions that Johnson was absolutely dominant in the run game and nearly as good in pass protection, but fell down the list due to his missing six full games with injury in the latter half of the season.

The drop off was noticeable to Big V, who was more than competent, but simply not as good as Lane Johnson.

Lane probably could have cracked the top ten had he remained healthy.

An argument could be made that the Eagles might have advanced further into the playoffs with him on the field, too.

Though they routinely rank Johnson as one of the top right tackles in football, this marks just his second appearance on the Top 101 and his highest ranking to date.

The player who did crack the top ten for the Eagles was right guard Brandon Brooks.

Brooks appears on his third list and his highest ranking as well.

Frankly, it is surprising with how hard PFF hammers home how underrated he has been for years that he has appeared on the list just two times prior to this.

Brooks was an absolutely dominant force and the fact that he was snubbed of both the comeback player of the year award and the AP All-Pro team, where he was not even named to the second team, is ludicrous.

Those that ranked ahead of Brooks were quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson, defensive tackle Aaron Donald and tight end George Kittle.

Since this list includes playoff performances, Brooks’ absence in the wild card round certainly hurt him while three of the four players ahead of him had some impressive performances in the playoffs to boost themselves up.