It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that in defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s first press conference of training camp, he got a couple of Nakobe Dean questions off the bat.
It’s going to be an important year for the Eagles’ new MIKE linebacker.
Desai was asked what makes him confident Dean can be the guy at that position this year.
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“The biggest thing I see from him is just the ability and the willingness to keep growing,” Desai said. “That's what we're looking for, really out of all these guys, and him in particular because it's a new role for him, and we're excited about it because he's got that mindset.
“He's been really working hard obviously in the offseason and all summer, in constant communication with his coaches and myself, and kind of just setting himself up. He's got to keep taking that mindset on a daily grind type of mindset.”
Dean, 22, was a third-round pick out of Georgia last year and many folks considered him to be quite a steal. But the Eagles began last training camp with T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White as their starters and never wavered. So Dean became a special teamer who played a grand total of just 34 defensive snaps.
But this year, Edwards and White are both gone after leaving in free agency, and Dean has been implemented as the Eagles’ middle linebacker.
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And the fact that the Eagles’ only move at the linebacker position this offseason was to sign Nicholas Morrow to a deal that included no guaranteed money, shows how much they’re going to trust Dean. Even if they add another player before the start of the season, Dean will still be a starter.
“I think what we learned from Nakobe was the same thing that we saw in college, the same reason that made him such a highly recruited guy coming out of high school,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said just before training camp began. “The guy has tremendous passion, tremendous love for the game, tremendous work ethic. He was around the ball in every opportunity he had.
“I think both of our off-ball linebackers last year played really well, and it's a credit to them and how well they played. When guys are playing really well, Coach will say all the time, you don’t make changes just for change sake. I don't think it was anything that Nakobe did as opposed to kind of what those guys were doing, and we have high expectations for Nakobe, but no higher than the expectations he has for himself.”
While the other starting linebacker appears to be Morrow, at least for now, we have seen Christian Elliss rotate in with the first team. In the first two days of practice, Dean has gotten every snap with the first-team defense.
As camp started, Roseman didn’t rule out the possibility that the Eagles could add another player at the linebacker position. But even if they do, it’s still pretty clear that Dean is going to be a starter in 2023. They're counting on him. And the Eagles are still bullish on the guy who was a leader of the Bulldogs championship team a couple years ago.
We still haven’t seen many flash plays from Dean in training camp but there’s a long way to go.
And a big part of Dean’s success this season will just be his ability to learn this defense and be able to play fast and get his teammates lined up.
“I think everybody is probably at a similar level,” Desai said. “I think they all have a really good grasp of the defense. I'm really proud of them. Those guys worked really hard over the summertime based on where we left off, and they took that kind of challenge of owning a lot of the stuff that we were doing.
“So, they came in really prepared, and we're throwing a lot at them right now, and I kind of told them that. I said it's kind of intentional from my perspective to challenge them a little bit and put a little pressure on them and then things will ease up. I believe in teaching on the field and learning that way and having guys learn through some mistakes, and so I think he's doing a great job with that, and then really embracing it.”
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