Eagles notebook: Nakobe Dean, the heat-seeking missile originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Jordan Davis first realized Nakobe Dean’s skill as a blitzer when they were teammates at Georgia.
That skill has followed Dean to the NFL and has been on display this month.
“It’s just always been there,” Davis said. “I think with Nakobe he just flies there and he’s literally like a heat-seeking missile and he just blows up the running back.
“Nakobe is the type of player that looks for contact. He doesn’t try to avoid it. If he gets the sack or gets the pressure, that’s just the icing on the cake for him. He just loves contact, he loves getting in there.”
The Eagles’ defense has gotten a big boost in the last month as Dean returned from the PUP list. Dean has gotten a sack in three straight games and has bowled over a few running backs in the process.
In the last three weeks, Dean has run through Josh Jacobs, David Montgomery and Javonte Williams on his way to sacks. He and his teammates have started to celebrate with a “choo-choo” motion after Dean runs over a back.
“It just comes down to dominance,” linebacker Jihaad Campbell said. ‘It comes down to who wants it more. You’re telling yourself that you’re going to run through another grown man. That’s bully ball. That’s the type of style [Dean] plays with, that’s the game he plays.”
Dean, 24, is the first Eagles linebacker to have a sack in three straight games since Mychal Kendricks during the 2015 season. And since sacks became an official stat, he’s just the fourth linebacker to do it, joining Kendricks (2015), William Thomas (1994) and Seth Joyner (1991). Thomas had a sack in four straight in ’94.
After having three sacks in 15 games last season, Dean already has three this year playing in just five games on defense. You can probably expect defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to keep sending him.
“He’s got a good feel for it,” Fangio said. “He can be physical when he needs to be, and he can slip a guy when he needs to slip a guy. So, he’s got a good feel for it.”
Still a playmaker
When answering a question about the possibility of using Tank Bigsby a little bit more, Nick Sirianni on Monday said this about Saquon Barkley:
“Obviously, we always want to get Saquon the ball as much as we possibly can because we know what type of playmaker he is.”
Barkley in 2024 had an all-time season but his production is obviously down in 2025. He is averaging just 3.7 yards per attempt and just 62.2 yards per game. So if Barkley still is that same playmaker, he hasn’t been able to show it this season.
So why is Sirianni confident he still is?
“We look at how everything looks when they got the ball in their hands,” Sirianni said. “I see explosiveness, I see power, I see all the things that have made him a great football player in the NFL for the last however many years he’s been in the NFL. And, again, sometimes it’s not happening in the run game but you see that explosiveness also in the pass game. We got a lot of guys who have the ability to do those things. Just have to find ways to get him the ball, different ways and get him in space and that will be our focus.”
Zack Baun honored
The NFL on Wednesday announced the 32 nominees for the 12th annual Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award, which “recognizes individuals around the league who exemplify outstanding sportsmanship.”
The Eagles’ nominee this year is linebacker Zack Baun.
“That’s cool,” Baun said after finding out about his nomination. “I try to play the game with integrity and sportsmanship is at the top of list. Sportsmanship with my teammates and other players. All of us in the NFL dreamed our whole lives to be in this situation and just respecting that everyone’s here and everyone is achieving their dreams.”
The award began in 2014 and the winner is determined by a vote of current NFL players after the field is narrowed to eight finalists by a panel of former NFL players. The winner of the award will be announced at NFL Honors and will receive a $25,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to a charity of his choice.
An explanation for a huge penalty
The Eagles were penalized 14 times in their loss to the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon. That ties their most in the Nick Sirianni Era. They also had 14 penalties in the first game Sirianni coached back in 2021.
Most of those penalties against the Cowboys were warranted and most of it comes out in the wash, but Vic Fangio did explain what happened on the 12 men on the field penalty in the third quarter.
“Yeah, they subbed, which allows us to sub and give us time to sub,” Fangio said. “The umpire was actually going up to the line of scrimmage to hold up the play and for some reason didn’t. That one, I’m not sure really what happened there, but they subbed so we should be able to sub, and we didn’t get off in time.”
The Eagles tried to replace Brandon Graham with Nolan Smith but Graham couldn’t get off the field in time. There ended up being two offsetting penalties on that snap. On the field, Nakobe Dean picked off a Dak Prescott pass and that interception was negated by the penalty. Of course, there’s a chance Prescott knew he had a free play and just got rid of it.
No explosive runs
The Eagles’ run game completely dried up on Sunday in Dallas as Saquon Barkley had just 10 carries for 22 yards. Under Nick Sirianni, the Eagles consider an explosive play as any run of 10+ yards and any pass of 16+ yards.
Sunday was just the fourth time in 88 games under Sirianni (regular and postseason) where the Eagles didn’t have a single explosive run. They had two such games in 2023 and then another in the meaningless Week 18 game against the Giants in 2024.
The Eagles’ longest runs on Sunday were 8 yards — Jalen Hurts had one and Tank Bigsby had the other.
Sirianni cares about the explosive play battle but the Eagles haven’t been very good in that area this season. The Eagles have played 11 games this season and have won the explosive play battle just twice — in Week 4 in Tampa (+1) and Week 8 against the Giants (+5). On the season, they are now -13 based on their own criteria.
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