Nakobe Dean Says He is Injury-Free, Will Take Field for Rookie Camp
In this story:
PHILADELPHIA - Injury? What injury?
Howie Roseman stopped a sliding Nakobe Dean by taking the Georgia linebacker in the third round after 82 players had gone before him.
Now, the Eagles general manager expects to see Dean on the field next weekend when the Eagles hold a rookie minicamp. Dean expects the same thing.
“I’m healthy,” he said. “I’m ready to go. I know minicamp is next week and I expect to be a full participant for that. Why I dropped? It’s not in my control. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I could do to make them pick me earlier. I’m grateful and blessed I have this opportunity.”
Apparently, a story of some sort began making the rounds on draft day about Dean straining a pectoral muscle and declining to have surgery.
Simply not true, Dean said. At least the part about surgery. He does have a pec strain but nothing that should prevent him from participating in the offseason workouts.
“That was the thing that was so surprising and mind-boggling,” said the LB. “It was never … I went to doctors, got second opinions and everything, and nobody, nobody said I should have surgery. Nobody had told me I had to have surgery.
“So, for that to come up and for teams to be saying that and waiting until the day of the draft to say something like that, that was kind of crazy to me. … I'm glad to be Eagle. I’m glad I got picked by a great organization, and I'm ready to work.”
The whole experience was frustrating.
“You know, listening to things that are not true and it's costing me a lot of money, and just seeing my mama’s face, and for me falling and to hear things like that, that was just the biggest thing,” he said, adding that the chip on his shoulder will now grow larger.
The pain, though, will be softened by a team that can’t wait to see what he can do, and by a teammate in Jordan Davis who was Dean’s teammate at Georgia.
Davis went 13th overall. He and Dean were two of seven Bulldogs defensive players that were picked in the first three rounds, which is the most by a single school since the draft began in 1967, surpassing the previous high of six from Alabama (2017) and LSU (2013).
Roseman said he had the Eagles’ medical team and the NFL’s medical team check out Dean’s health, “three, four times to see am I missing something? We brought him in. Am I missing something? Because obviously, this guy is way higher on our board.”
There is no doubt it was the medical red flag – seemingly a bogus one at that – that caused Dean’s slide.
“I think they clearly did,” said Roseman referring to the medicals. “This is a unique player. …We got lucky.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
