Road To Recovery

PHILADELPHIA  – The gravity of an NFL season-opener, the proverbial starting line of a 17-plus week marathon, represents varying degrees of significance to players depending on circumstance.

For Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean, who took the road less traveled to position himself to start for the opening drive in São Paulo, Brazil, the reset warranted reflection.

Dean, playing an NFL game for the first time since suffering a season-ending Lisfranc sprain in his left foot last November in a narrow win over the Cowboys, overcame recovery hurdles, a position battle – and plenty of skeptics along the way – to bear the fruits of his labor, accounting for 94 percent of the defensive snaps against the Packers.

And on the heels of an eye-opening third summer with the Eagles, the 23-year-old might have already turned some of those skeptics into believers.

“It was a long road of recovery, but I’m blessed,” he said. “I thank God and all my supporters, my family and everybody, for just helping me through it. First time I ever had to really had to go through something like that, and I wasn’t alone.

“Good thing, I continue to keep a positive attitude no matter what life throws at me. So, just continue to build and I was able to work that adversity with a positive attitude. But it felt great being back for that first game.”

GETTY IMAGES: Eagles third-year LB Nakobe Dean scratched and clawed his way back to a starting job. Can he keep it?

When the dust from the most daunting camp of the Nick Sirianni era had settled, and the linebacking hierarchy had been established, it was Dean who had played his way into the starting lineup through continuous improvement and sustained impact.

Even with veteran Devin White sidelined from an ankle injury and unavailable for the opener, Dean had emerged as the Eagles’ top linebacker, attacking downhill with ferocity, flowing to the football with urgency and diagnosing plays at a much faster clip than past years.

The foot injuries of 2023 were a distant memory, reflected in Dean’s on-field performance.

Sure, Dean took his lumps in coverage throughout the first half of camp, particularly during the open practice at Lincoln Financial Field, but he showed an ability to adjust and limit his lapses to a respectable level, to immerse himself in defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s scheme, and to minimize mistakes that fueled his late-summer rise.

As a result, Dean showcased enough to reclaim his starting spot for the second consecutive season, though this time teaming with a more viable counterpart in free-agent addition Zack Baun.

With both players boasting such little experience playing off-ball linebacker in the pro ranks – Baun logged minimal reps at inside linebacker during his time with the Saints, and Dean had appeared in only 23 games with five starts – establishing communication amid the complexities of Fangio’s defense was paramount.

It’s something both Dean and Baun work on daily in an effort to operate in concert on game days.

“Every day,” Dean said. “Every day we gotta communicate. Every day, it’s a new challenge of communicating, how [Baun] wants to hear it, does he wanna hear it, ‘Hey I’m here, I’m here.’ or ‘Hey, Zach, I got it.’ Little things like that to let ’em know that I’m here as his backstop or if I’m passing along to him. And vice-versa. It’s just continuous; playing with each other and learning from each other and everything.

“And also, he plays one linebacker position and I play the other. And when motion starts happening, sometimes we might end up in each other’s spots, so knowing how to communicate and knowing how to play the same spots. It’s just a continuous will of learning.”

While both players especially fell under intense scrutiny during the offseason, and even during the assessment of the seasonal outlook, Dean was universally viewed as the key to unlocking whatever potential the unit carried.

The pessimism from outside came with those expectations for the third-year linebacker. Many had written off Dean before camp even started, using his recent bout with injuries as a convenient criticism.

His injury riddled 2023 season, however, could very well prove to be the outlier.

Regardless, Dean, an immensely smart player, appears to be rounding into form. It seems Fangio, who places an extraordinary burden on his linebackers, has brought out the best in him so far.

“The importance that he puts on the linebacker position, it’s definitely different than what it’s been the past two years that I’ve been here,” Dean said. “The workload and the responsibility he puts on the linebackers to know and get everybody lined up and be the communicators of the defense.

“It’s been a little different. Like I always say, we’re the – I guess you could say – the ultimate equalizers, because we run with 4.3 [pass cachers] and we bang with 350 [pound linemen].”

Serving as the MIKE, or middle, linebacker in any defense speaks to a player’s football acumen.

While the player must be an elite communicator, they must also be well-versed in the responsibilities and functionality of those across the defense.

Dean might not boast archetype size or be the rangiest in coverage, but it’s his blend of intelligence, discipline, instincts and physicality that make him an ideal match for the middle and to call the defense through Fangio’s eyes.

Opponents will inevitably scheme weekly to isolate Dean in coverage, and the visiting Atlanta Falcons tonight offer a diverse collection of weapons who could potentially exploit the teeth of the Eagles’ defense, specifically running back Bijan Robinson and tight end Kyle Pitts.

But Dean, a notorious film junkie, has done his part behind the scenes to prepare himself for the challenge, going through the weekly game plan while also noting tendencies and how other defenses fared against some of those weapons.

Taking a moment to assess the previous week, Dean discussed the need to improve on “everything” as a defense going into the game, before honing in on tackling and improved communication on the front and back ends.

He also beamed when describing how the unit fared in establishing an identity, citing a need to build on the tenacity.

“I feel like we had a good tenacity and ferociousness to the game,” Dean said. “And kinda being nasty, like a junkyard defense. I kind of like that tough, gritty defense, like, we don’t care.”

In the same breath, Dean, appearing to grow into a leadership role, expanded on the tone-setting mindset of a reconfigured Eagles defense.

“If we can’t walk, we gonna crawl,” he said. “If we can’t crawl, we gonna f-ckin’ roll. If we can’t roll, we gonna bite at your ankles. A defense like that, it doesn’t matter.”

– Andrew DiCecco (@AndrewDiCecco) is a Staff Reporter/Content Producer for InsideTheBirds.com.