The Eagles on Saturday agreed to contract terms with four-year veteran inside linebacker Jatavis Brown, according to agent Drew Rosenhaus.
He automatically becomes the Eagles' most experienced linebacker.
The 26-year-old Brown was one of the Chargers’ key defensive players in his first three NFL seasons, making 22 starts, but he played a drastically reduced role this past season.
Brown played between 505 and 637 defensive snaps in his first three seasons with the Chargers but that number went down to 92 last year, and his special teams reps tripled from an average of 69 in his first three years to 210 last year.
In his last 10 games, Brown played no snaps six times and four or fewer snaps twice.
Brown, originally a fifth-round pick of the Chargers out of Akron in 2016, started seven games as a rookie, five in 2017, 10 in 2018 and just one last year.
The 5-foot-11, 220-pound Brown has 265 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, seven quarterback hits, three fumble recoveries and 4 1/2 sacks in 56 career games. All but one of those sacks came his rookie year.
This past year, Brown started only one game. He suffered a sprained ankle and missed three games but when he returned, his snaps had gone down dramatically as defensive coordinator Gus Bradley began using a nickel defense as the Chargers’ base.
With Nigel Bradham a free agent and not expected back and Kamu Grugier-Hill now with the Dolphins, the only other linebackers under contract are Nathan Gerry, Duke Riley, T.J. Edwards and Alex Singleton. Riley has 16 career starts, all with the Falcons in 2017 and 2018, Gerry has 15 career starts and Edwards started four games with the Eagles last year as a rookie. Singleton hasn’t played any career defensive snaps.
Brown is the latest in an overhaul of the linebacker position that actually started last October, when the Eagles released Zach Brown, who had started the first five games of the season.
Bradham (12 starts), Grugier-Hill (six starts) and Brown (five starts) made a combined 23 starts last year and all will be elsewhere in 2020.
The Eagles have been active in free agency, with virtually all the moves on the defensive side.
They’ve re-signed defensive backs Jalen Mills and Rodney McLeod and defensive tackle Hassan Ridgeway and signed defensive tackle Javon Hargrave and acquired cornerback Darius Slay in a trade with the Lions.
The only offensive player they’ve signed so far during free agency is backup quarterback Nate Sudfeld.
Of their own free agents, Grugier-Hill, Halapoulivaati Vaitai (Lions), Jordan Howard (Dolphins) and Malcolm Jenkins (Saints) have found new homes.
Click here to download the MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Flyers, Sixers and Phillies games easily on your device.