Getty Former Georgia studs Nakobe Dean and Jordan Davis are looking to make an impact as rookies for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Philadelphia Eagles rookie linebacker Nakobe Dean has been used primarily as a special-teams player through the first eight games. The former Georgia stud has seen a total of only four defensive snaps while watching veterans Kyzir White and T.J. Edwards feast. It’s only a matter of time before Dean gets an opportunity, it’s just hard to find a role for him on a defensive unit this talented.
Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon doesn’t like to rush his first-year players into combat. First-rounder Jordan Davis was being used sparingly, mostly on early downs in clear-cut running situations, until a high ankle sprain landed him on injured reserve. It’s nothing personal. Dean is doing what he’s supposed to do, especially behind the scenes.
“When we need him, he’ll be ready to go,” Gannon said of Dean. “This guy improves every day, like all our guys. They take their reps to heart. They try to maximize their reps in practice. He’s playing scout team, as well, like all our twos do, which that’s the head coach. I love how he sets up practice with ones versus twos. Not just scout team. And they play our calls, so he’s getting time on task into our calls with what we have up in the game plan.”
Nakobe Dean isn’t playing on defense yet but here he is casually hitting a damn spin move to make a tackle on special teams. 👀
Eagles Looking for Everybody’s ‘Best Shot’
Dean was part of a national championship team last year at Georgia that got off to a 12-0 start before getting knocked off by Alabama. The Bulldogs used that loss as motivation and beat the Crimson Tide a month later for the crown. So Dean knows better than most the challenge of staying undefeated. The Eagles know they are going to get everybody’s best shot.
“That’s what we want,” Dean told Jim Rome. “We want everybody’s best shot because we’re going to give everybody our best shot and coming from Georgia, it’s kind of like we don’t look at it like there’s a target on our back.”
According to Dean, the Eagles cannot resemble a wounded deer wandering in the woods. They need to have their scopes on and rifles up.
“We’re not the hunted. We’re the hunter,” Dean said. “So we’re going into every week with that mindset. We going for everybody, they not coming for us. We just continue to go achieve every week, go one by one, trying to be 1-0 each week, and then I feel like we just continue to keep on rolling.”
C.J. Gardner-Johnson Asking to Play Receiver
Head coach Nick Sirianni said starting safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson has been nudging him about getting snaps on offense at wide receiver. Maybe he’s trying to take a page out of Darius Slay’s playbook. But, according to Gannon, a position switch for Gardner-Johnson doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon despite his elite ball skills.
“Yeah, he has good ball skills. I don’t know if he’s ready to go in and run a slant one-on-one on 3rd and 3 and win,” Gannon said. “I think I’d rather have A.J. [Brown] do that. But you know, they had Slay do it. If they’re going to take Chauncey for a third down; I’ll take DeVonta [Smith] for a third down one time and we’ll go from there.”