Josh Sweat teams up with Javon Hargrave to exploit Bears offensive line and build on a career year

CHICAGO — A career year from a 2018 fourth-round pick is paying dividends for one of the league’s most dominant pass rushes.

As the 13-1 Eagles close in on a team record in sacks, with 55 through their first 14 games (62 through 16 games is the record, set in 1989), Josh Sweat is continuing a dominant four-game stretch that includes six sacks and two multi-sack games. Sweat finished Sunday’s game with a two-sack performance (three tackles for losses) against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.

Sunday’s success was a result of a tendency Sweat and seven-year pro Javon Hargrave noticed during film study as they prepared to face a struggling Bears offensive line. The caveat? Both players had to agree to do something they don’t pride themselves on: running pass-rush stunts. That commitment netted six sacks for the vaunted Eagles defense.

“Me and him [Hargrave], we got too much pride because we never run games because we can go get it anyway,” Sweat said postgame.

“We had to set our pride to the side and say, ‘Let’s just go get it,’ and we coordinated with each other.”

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Hargrave and Sweat combined to produce four sacks, with three coming off the same twist stunt that Bears left guard Cody Whitehair and rookie left tackle Braxton Jones failed to sort out.

The first two led to sacks for Sweat, when Hargrave occupied both Whitehair and Jones with his quickness and heavy hands, allowing the former Florida State standout to loop back inside after initially aligning outside of the left tackle. On the third sack, which happened early in the third quarter, it was Sweat who sacrificed his pass rush to occupy both offensive linemen, allowing Hargrave a free run at Bears quarterback Justin Fields.

All three sacks came on third down, allowing the Eagles defense to get off the field. The stunts made it difficult for Fields to know where exactly the Eagles pass rush would be coming from despite his running ability in the open field.

Fields still escaped a handful of times, finishing with 95 rushing yards, including 39-yard run to set up a Bears second-quarter touchdown, but the mindset for the Eagles pass rushers didn’t change.

“We knew it was a flight risk, we knew he could go, just the way we rush though, we can all go full speed and not really worry about it because we take care of each other, we all win in our area and as best we can we take care of step-ups,” Sweat added. “He got out a couple of times, we knew it would happen, but at the end of the day, we got him and I think we did a pretty good job.”

Sweat isn’t the only player along the defensive line having a career season. While Sweat has surpassed his career high in sacks in his fifth season with 9½, Hargrave crossed the 10-sack threshold after adding two more on Sunday.

On the other side of the defensive line, pass rusher Hasson Reddick, who also turned in a monster game with two sacks of his own plus a forced fumble, is up to 12 sacks this season and within a half-sack of matching a career high set in 2020 with the Arizona Cardinals.

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The versatility of the Eagles defensive line carries over to the locker room, where each player is competing with the man next to him to rack up the sack totals. The
intrasquad competition is what drives Sweat in particular.

“[It’s] a little frustrating and scary, because I’m trying to beat them every play,” Sweat said with a laugh. “The competition is great, we talk trash to each other all week like, ‘Yo, I’m going to get you and outdo you so be ready,’ but that’s the beauty of it, we all compete and we all take care of each other.”

With three games left in the regular season, Sweat and Hargrave have an opportunity to add to their already impressive 2022 sack totals. The two are playing some of the best football of their careers, and Saturday night’s matchup against the Dallas Cowboys is another opportunity to show how dangerous they can be with the playoffs just around the corner.

Said Sweat of his relationship with Hargrave: “We push each other. You can say we both had our best seasons yet.”