Eagles’ free-agent additions on defense won’t matter if Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean can’t play

For about nine minutes Friday, prodigal safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson delivered a State of the C.J. Address.

He touted his evolved maturity, paradoxically. He admitted that his injured feelings — he wanted a lot of guaranteed money — affected negotiations to return to the Eagles last season and led him to rip the “[expletive] obnoxious” fans (he wisely apologized on Twitter/X). He promised to “turn the lights on back in the building,” to reenergize a team and culture grown stale while harnessing his personality, which, he said, too often focused on the me rather than the we.

He was as repentant and as reflective and as self-effacing as he could possibly be, which is to say, just barely. “Ceedy Duce” — the entity CJGJ claims is his alter-ego (and whose homonym is both hilarious and gross) — changed his Eagles number from 23 to 8 in honor of the late Kobe Bryant, whose “Mamba Mentality” he hopes to emulate because “he [didn’t] settle. ... Go out there and win. And kill. In a good way.” Yikes.

Gardner-Johnson, with a three-year deal worth up to $33 million in his pocket, was entertaining, and he was irreverent. But no matter how well he plays, unless the big-name Birds improve, he will be irrelevant.

» READ MORE: C.J. Gardner-Johnson says he’s grown more mature and expands on his apology to Eagles fans

In the last week, Howie Roseman committed nearly $100 million to repair the defense that cost the Eagles six of their last seven games. But he’s done little more than paint the shutters. The foundation, built on Bulldogs, remains in question.

Roseman drafted three Georgia linemen in the first round in the last two years. Defensive tackle Jordan Davis and defensive end Nolan Smith were nowhere to be found after Thanksgiving.

Defensive end Bryce Huff broke out with 10 sacks last season for the Jets and can earn $51 million from the Birds. But Huff wasn’t signed to stop the run up the middle, and, like Smith, he doesn’t set the edge with consistency or firmness.

Linebacker Devin White had three great seasons in Tampa before injury and errors beset him in 2023, and his one-year, $7.5 million deal reflects his diminished value. White isn’t the kind of linebacker who can compensate for Nakobe Dean, a third-year, third-rounder out of Georgia.

Similarly, if that “Ceedy Duce” fella is making seven or eight tackles a game, it means that backs and tight ends are getting too deep into the defense because Carter, Davis, and Dean aren’t stopping them.

This is not meant to criticize Roseman. He has been brilliant in his efforts to patch the faulty foundation he constructed with the materials on the market.

Christian Wilkins broke the bank, getting $110 million to move from Miami to Las Vegas, and Chris Jones stayed with the Kansas City Chiefs, and anonymous Chicago Bears tackle Justin Jones hoodwinked the Arizona Cardinals out of $30 million. The DT market was not the place to improve what the Eagles lacked in their young players and what they lost last week with Fletcher Cox’s retirement. It also wouldn’t hurt if Milton Williams developed into something more than a placeholder.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Howie Roseman defends his team-building philosophy at linebacker and has belief in Nakobe Dean

Dean might have problems, and the Birds devalue the linebacker position too much for my taste, but only a team like the mud-stuck Pittsburgh Steelers would throw $41 million at a free-agent inside linebacker like former Baltimore Ravens stud Patrick Queen. The Eagles have been to two Super Bowls since the Steelers last won a playoff game.

The safety market was little better. Xavier “Every Other Year” McKinney got $67 million to leave the New York Giants for the Green Bay Packers, and good for him, but Gardner-Johnson is a far better value. Both get hurt a lot, but in 2022 CJGJ gave the Eagles the best safety play they’ve had since Malcolm Jenkins in 2018, and his return makes a difference, but how much difference will it make if the Birds can’t collapse the pocket?

There’s an argument to be made that the Eagles’ 70 sacks in 2022 covered up a lot of blemishes in the defensive backfield. Those blemishes grew uglier in 2023, after Javon Hargrave left for San Francisco and suddenly quarterbacks got real comfortable.

Besides, if Saquon Barkley is 80% of the player he was in his four (of six) healthy years as a Giant, then the Eagles offense should average around 30 points per game.

If Carter, Davis, Dean, and Smith don’t play to their pedigree, then the Eagles will need every one of those points.