‘I know the type of player I can be:' Nakobe Dean counting down days till 2024

Nakobe Dean’s message: Give up on him at your own risk.

“I know who I am,” Dean said. “I know who I am, I ain't got it wrong. I know who I am. I'm confident in my game. I know the type of player I can be. I know the type of person I can be for this city.”

After playing just 34 defensive snaps as a rookie in 2022, Dean got his chance to be a starting linebacker this fall – he was the Eagles’ youngest defensive opening-day starter since corner Brandon Boykin in 2012 – but he suffered a right foot injury in the opener in Foxboro and missed four games. 

He came back in Week 6 for the Jets but didn’t feel 100 percent until the Cowboys game a few weeks later. And that’s when he suffered the Lysfranc injury in his left foot that ended his season.

There was so much hype around Dean coming out of Georgia and his first two NFL seasons certainly haven’t lived up to the hype.

But he just turned 23, he’s only played a handful of healthy snaps in his career, and both the Eagles and Dean remain optimistic he’ll become a key part of a rebuilt 2024 defense.

“You're going to get criticism,” Dean said. “You're going to get haters. You're going to get motivators. But if I live for their compliments, I'm going to die for their criticism. So I'm not listening. I don't listen to the good or the bad. I take everything with a grain of salt. 

“Everybody will always have something to say. No matter if you're the best linebacker in the league or the worst linebacker, they're always going to have something negative to say.”

Dean and Ben VanSumeren, an undrafted rookie this past season, are the Eagles’ only off-ball linebackers under contract in 2024. Dean has played 216 career snaps and VanSumeren 50.

Howie Roseman knows there’s a lot of work to do to give new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio the personnel he needs to have a fighting chance. But he said the Eagles remain as high as ever on Dean.

“I have a lot of belief - and I know (Nick Sirianni) does as well - in Nakobe Dean,” he said. “I believe in the player. I believe in the person. We lost two linebackers (from 2022) at that spot, two good players from our Super Bowl team, and we had Nakobe waiting in the wings. We drafted him for that role. 

“Obviously, it didn't work out perfectly for him this year. That doesn't change the belief we have in the player.”

Dean said he made the most of his time on the sideline, but it can't be easy to watch things fall apart in front of your eyes, and there's nothing you can do about it.

“Not being out there, it hurt me,” Dean said. “Not being able to be there for the team in the way that I know I could have been. I tried to be there any way I could be even though. 

“It was crazy because I've been rehabbing hard, just basically trying to get my foot up and everything and the only thing I can think about is, ‘I can't wait for the OTAs, I can't wait for training camp, I can't wait until next year,’” Dean said,. “But then I'm looking at the other guys, and they’re still out there playing this season, and I'm like, ‘Oh, it's going to be a minute, not going to be there for a while.

“But just keep the faith, keep the faith, keep the confidence, and do everything I can do in my power to come back and be better than I’ve ever been.”

Dean, a 3^rd-round pick in 2023, is only the third linebacker Howie Roseman has drafted since initially becoming general manager in 2010. 

He drafted Mychal Kendricks in the second round in 2012 and Davion Taylor in the third round in 2020. Chip Kelly was GM when the Eagles took Jordan Hicks in the third round in 2015. Kendricks is the only off-ball linebacker the Eagles have taken with a top-50 pick since Barry Gardner in 1999.

“I feel like I really barely ever get hurt and then for me to just have two foot things back-to-back like that, it's kind of crazy,” Dean said.

“I finally didn’t feel any pain at all in the Cowboys game and that was the best I ever felt – and then I got hurt again,” he said. “Being a guy who never missed a game in high school or college – never even missed a practice - to miss more than half of the season, it definitely hit me hard.

“But you can’t feel sorry for yourself. As soon as they let me, it was time to get to work and get better, and I continue to better myself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually in all different ways so I can be the best version of myself.”

Dean has been lifting since soon after the surgery and he said his boot is coming off in the next couple weeks, so he’ll be able to really kick his rehab and conditioning into gear.

OTAs are only four months away. Training camp is six months away. Opening day is eight months away.

Asked how hungry he is to get back to work, Nakobe shook his head.

No.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’m starving.”

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