Count me a contrarian regarding Nakobe Dean and his status with the Eagles heading into training camp.
Almost a fixture on the negative side in any kind of stock market report for Philadelphia’s spring work, the thought here is that many missed some contextual clues.
The most obvious being that Dean only participated in individual drills during the Eagles’ first voluntary OTA opened to the media while in the final stages of recovering from the Lisfranc surgery that cut short his 2023 season at six games.
The last time we got to talk to Dean back in April he noted that he was nearing 100 percent but wasn’t quite there yet.
The third-year player returned to team drills for the final four spring practices, including the three-day minicamp last week playing mostly on the second team with veteran free agent signing Oren Burks. He did mix in with the first team for the occasional rep, however.
The presumption that Dean wasn’t on a pitch count by OTA2 is probably a poor one, however, as in the assertation that Devin White and Zack Baun have been penciled in by Vic Fangio as the presumptive starters.
The bet here is that Dean will get every opportunity to win the starting Mike job in training camp, something that would shift White over to the weakside position and Baun as perhaps the Andrew Van Ginkel-like toggler between stacked LB and the edge.
Dean and his 4.45 speed is made for shorts and 7-on-7s but his history in Tampa is filled with false steps and gap-control issues when the pads go on. As for Baun, contracts aren’t deciding anything but they do give you a window into the team’s thinking, and the one-year, $3.5 million deal isn’t exactly splashy and it’s not even as advertised with only $1.6M of that guaranteed and the rest tied into incentives.
So don’t close the book on Dean just yet.
"I know I may have been out of sight, out of mind because of the injuries, so I'm here now,” Dean said.
The change comes with the former Georgia star’s status as the default at the LB position. Now, he’s going to have to earn it.
"The mental side is always hard, but we talk about having a dawg mentality all the time and I feel like it starts with being mentally strong," Dean said. "I'm an optimistic realist, so I'm always real about my situation, but I'm always optimistic. So, the only thing I continue to do is work and everything else will take care of itself."
GM Howie Roseman has consistently endorsed Dean and the organization’s belief is his ceiling as a player remains higher than anyone else on the team at the LB position.
“I have a lot of belief, and I know Coach (Nick Sirianni) does, as well, in Nakobe Dean,” Roseman said. “I believe in the player. I believe in the person.”
