Eagles' Nakobe Dean & Nolan Smith: Roommates Again?
PHILADELPHIA - The most famous pair of Philadelphia Eagles roommates may have been Dallas Goedert and Avonte Maddox.
The two members of the team’s 2018 draft class found a place to live together after Goedert was picked in the second round and Maddox in the fourth. They became fast friends, despite having grown up in two very different areas of the country, with Goedert from South Dakota and Maddox from Detroit.
After receiving contract extensions about a month apart during the 2021 season, the two teammates eventually parted ways. Amicably.
“I thought the plan was we were going to get a lot of land, two houses on there, two ATVs so we could drive back and forth, you know?” joked Goedert in the fall of 2021 after the two decided to move on, though remain great friends.
“…All great things must come to an end sometime. You have to move on and continue your life eventually.”
Maddox’s take back then?
“We’re starting to get older now, time to settle down with loved ones, things like that, so I’ll let Dallas free, finally,” he kidded.
So, there’s an opening for another set of roomies, and maybe Jack Stoll and Cam Jurgens step up. The tight end and offensive lineman were friends at the University of Nebraska and share an apartment in South Philly.
But perhaps the next set of roomies will be Nakobe Dean and Nolan Smith.
The two linebackers roomed together at Georgia. Room 214 in a dorm on the Athens, Ga., campus.
“It was fun,” Dean said when asked how Smith was as a roommate. “When he said we were going to go to Georgia, win a championship, and have fun, that’s exactly what we did. He was my roommate for a year and a half.”
Winning a championship is still the same goal for the two Eagles, so why not room together?
The two arrived at Georgia as engineering students, before Smith switched over to mathematics. Dean went the mechanical engineering route.
Still, the bond between the two grew quickly while studying together.
"Me and him studied till about 2 o'clock in the morning and woke up the next day for 8 o'clock class," Smith said. “And we just did our whole freshman year, and we became real close. We did some study halls, just me and him, and I just realized that he's kind of really like me."
So, maybe that bond is reforged and they become the latest, famous pairs of Eagles to get a place to live together while helping a Philly defense that is looking to replace five starters from last year's NFC championship team.
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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