One of the LA Chargers' draft picks that didn't get much playing time last season was fourth-round Alabama DT Justin Eboigbe. Eboigbe played just 26 snaps on defense last season at both interior defensive tackle and EDGE. He got some reps at the latter during periods of the 2024 campaign when the Chargers were dealing with injuries at the position.
Jesse Minter joined Chargers Weekly to talk about the Chargers' draft picks and the players on the defense as a whole. When asked about Eboigbe's relative lack of playing time last year and what can be expected from him in the defense going forward, LA's defensive coordinator had promising things to say.
"I know he's a competitor," Minter started. "And any time you're a competitor and you don't play as much as your competitive self wants you to play, there can be frustrating times. I give him a lot of credit for keeping his head down, working, developing, getting better as the season went on. After the season, some of the conversations were just around the ability to make a jump from year one to year two. And so many guys do that."
Justin Eboigbe may play a bigger role on the Chargers in 2025
Minter also dropped a particularly interesting nugget about the physical work that the former Alabama DL is putting in this offseason for 2025.
"Not to put super high expectations on Justin (Eboigbe), but we do have high expectations for him. I could not be more proud and excited of the work he's put in. He's put on 20 plus pounds since the end of the season," Minter continued.
"He's trained with Coach Herb (Ben Herbert) quite a bit, which I'm really excited about. Because I know the impact that he can have on guys in their development. And so he's in a great place right now. He's got another really good room. But he's in a better position physically to do some of the things we need him to do. He's in a great place going into year two to be able to help us."
Eboigbe is listed at 292 pounds on the team's official website, which does trend lighter for defensive tackles. At the NFL Combine last year, he weighed in at 297 pounds. "20+ pounds" would put him in the range of 315-320. Most notably, that's important because of Eboigbe's height and length. He's one of the taller DTs in the room at 6'4".
The Chargers are going to need snaps and production from their collective defensive interior this year as they lost some of their pass rush juice with Poona Ford and Morgan Fox departing. Hopefully, Eboigbe is going to be a bigger part of that vision in 2025 than he was last season.