Eagles Camp Preview: Inside LB Nakobe Dean’s ‘Full Plate’
PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Eagles have one of the deepest rosters in the NFL and are the betting favorites on the NFC side to make a return trip to the Super Bowl.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t question marks or areas of concern, however, and the biggest of both starts on the second line of defense, a devalued position in Philadelphia.
The Eagles lost both 2022-23 starters in free agency when T.J. Edwards signed with his hometown Chicago Bears and Kyzir White reunited with Jonathan Gannon and Nick Rallis in Arizona.
Edwards was the bigger loss as the so-called “green dot” of the defense who played in all 20 games through Super Bowl LVII. He was on the field for 94 percent of the team’s defensive snaps, 1,185 to be exact, while being graded as the No. 6 off-ball LB in the entire NFL by Pro Football Focus. White also proved durable enough to suit up in all 20 games, playing 75 percent of the time, a total of 955 reps.
The duo was so steady that then-rookie Nakobe Dean, coming off a Butkus Award-winning season at Georgia got a taste of just 34 snaps on the defense in Year 1. Now the second-year player is expected to step in for Edwards both physically and mentally and be the on-field leader for the defense of a Super Bowl contender that is also shifting from Gannon to Sean Desai as defensive coordinator and Rallis to D.J. Eliot as the position coach.
Those expecting that transition to go seamlessly are very optimistic.
Dean is very instinctive but undersized and not terribly athletic by NFL standards which was the disconnect (along with some shoulder concerns) from those who believed he should have been a first-round pick to where he landed at No. 83 overall.
Penciled in to replace White is free-agent pickup Nicholas Morrow, who was a solid player on a bad defense last season in Chicago. A converted college safety Morrow took an under-market deal with no guaranteed money to go from playing behind perhaps the worst defensive line in the NFL to arguably the best in hopes of getting back on the market in 2024 in a better position.
To do that Morrow will need to play well over the summer because his contract means the Eagles can move on immediately if need me.
There isn’t exactly a ton of depth to push Morrow, however.
Christian Elliss made a splash late last season as a special teams player and was excellent at OTAs in the spring, intercepting both Jalen Hurts and Marcus Mariota. He’s firmly in control of the LB3 slot and really the only other relevant in-house option to push Morrow and/or Dean.
The other reserves are fourth-year player Shaun Bradley, who has been a core-special teamer, 2020 third-round pick Davion Taylor, who has a history with Eliot dating back to college when both were at Colorado, 2022 sixth-round pick Kyron Johnson, an undersized edge player who also has a college history with Eliot at Kansas and was switched to off-ball LB in the spring, along with athletic undrafted free agent Ben VanSumeren.
Taylor, a raw player with little experience entering the league, was showing some signs in the 2021 season before being derailed by a knee injury. He reached afterthought status after being released last season and then being brought back to the practice squad. This is probably Taylor's last opportunity to make an impression.
The others – Bradley, Johnson, and VanSumeren – are probably going to make their push by impressing special teams coordinator Michael Clay more than Desai.
Depth Chart:
Mike - Nakobe Dean; Nicholas Morrow; Shaun Bradley; Ben VanSumeren
Will - Nicholas Morrow; Christian Elliss; Davion Taylor; Kyron Johnson
WHAT’S CHANGED: Just about everything you’ll see on game day. The two starters will be new as are the DC and LB coach. Much will be asked of Dean in his second season while Morrow is a wild card as the most experience LB who might not even be in Philadelphia by Week 1. Morow and VanSumeren are the new players with the latter being a tremendous athlete who doesn’t have great instincts for the position.
COACHING: Eliot is a long-time college coach who was the DC/inside linebackers at Temple in Philadelphia last season. His first job as a position coach came in 2003 as the defensive back coach at Texas State. By the next year, Eliot was coaching LBs at the same school and has been specializing in LBs ever since save for a six-year detour at Rice (2007-09) and Florida State (2010-12) when he was tutoring the defensive lines.
Eliot was a DC/linebackers coach at his last four stops in college, Kentucky (2013-16), Colorado (2017-18), where he coached Taylor, and Kansas (2019-20), where he coached Johnson.
Head coach Nick Sirianni cited Eliot’s attention to detail and teaching ability when discussing the hire.
Eliot will be assisted by Tyler Scudder, who arrived in the organization as Sirianni’s personal assistant in 2021, and was moved to a defensive assistant position last season before being formally named assistant LBs coach this offseason.
THE CEILING: Dean plays like the star he was in college at Georgia with his ex-college teammates Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter keeping blockers off the undersized playmaker while Morrow brings competency at the Will similar to what White offered last season.
THE LONGSHOT: When you move positions at the NFL level, it generally means one of two things: the team is trying to find a roster spot for you or it's a last-ditch opportunity to salvage something that is more of a death knell than anything else.
With Johnson, it could be either explanation. The Eagles are legitimately so deep on the edge that the numbers game was untenable there for him. That said, at 6-foot and 235 pounds Johnson played off-ball in college at Kansas before taking off as an edge so it’s not like he hasn't at least played the position.
Johnson came to the NFL billed as a great special teams player and while he didn’t splash there right away as a rookie he did finish second on the team in special teams tackles with seven so the guess is the Eagles are searching for a roster spot for Johnson if the speedy second-year player does his part this summer.
WHO STAYS/GOES: The only locks are Dean and Elliss with Morrow safe unless Philadelphia goes outside the organization. The rest are about special teams with Bradley the proven commodity, and Johnson/VanSumeren with the significant upside in that aspect.
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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
