Eagles News: Nakobe Dean, divisional round adversity and the passing game

The Philadelphia Eagles get to play the Rams at home in the divisional round of the playoffs on Sunday. That’s terrific news, given the hammer that the Eagles laid down in the 37-20 Week 12 win in L.A. 

Now we just have to wait until the weekend. In the meantime, there’s been some fallout from Sunday’s game and then some news about what the Rams have to deal with this week.

Everyone has a take on the Eagles passing game

As a whole, the Eagles' passing game stunk on Sunday. Not because of Jalen turning the ball over or anything like that, but it was stale and all-around inefficient. When that happens on a big stage, you’re going to get all of the talking heads’ takes on what we’ve been seeing and talking about for the past four months.

Enter ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, who had a tweet/video that went semi-viral asking questions about said passing offense.

Well, yeah, Dan. This is nothing new. The Eagles offense doesn’t have any crazy route trees or scheming wide receivers open. The most you’ll get are play-action passes (which are very effective) and even those don’t happen all that often. 

And then there was Chase Daniel, who had another clip that went semi-viral:

Chase and Dan aren’t necessarily disagreeing with each other. Dan’s talking scheme and Chase is talking about Jalen's performance. They’re both kind of right with their criticisms.

The Sirianni offense relies on talent. It’s unfortunate, but when it works, it works really well because the Eagles’ offense can out-talent anyone. Otherwise, you see exactly what Orlovsky pointed out: plain and predictable routes that don’t complement each other and effective zone coverage against a quarterback who’s reluctant to throw a turnover-worthy ball.

It’s the ‘avoiding of the turnovers’ part that Chase is talking about. Would it be cool to see Jalen rip a ball into a tight window? Yes. Would A.J. or DeVonta come down with it? Probably. But is that worth it? The Eagles clearly think it’s not.

Remember, from last season into this season,  Jalen had thrown nine interceptions in eight games. Then the bye week hit, and Jalen has only thrown one interception since. 

Avoiding turnovers is a point of emphasis on this offense, and winning the turnover battle is a point of emphasis for the entire team. If the Eagles have an offense that can dominate on the ground and avoid needless turnovers in the air, then why wouldn’t it?

The thing here is that we haven’t seen what this offense looks like when Jalen is playing from behind. If it comes down to late in the fourth quarter and the Eagles desperately need points, we have to trust that Jalen will make the throws he needs to make. 

But he doesn’t need to make those throws in a game where they have a 10-point lead, which is the exact situation he was in with the Packers. There’s no reason to play dumb when playing smart is an option. That’s the luxury you have when your defense is the best in the league.

The Rams have a funky schedule this week

On Monday morning, the Eagles had two possible opponents for their divisional game: The Rams or the Vikings. Whoever won the game between the two on Monday night won a trip to Philadelphia on Sunday.

Going into that game, the Rams seemed like the team that the Eagles would want to play because a 36-year-old Matt Stafford would have to travel across the country on a short week. That’d be good for the Eagles because that would probably not be great for him.

Then the game happened, and the clock officially struck midnight on the Vikings’ quarterback Sam Darnold, and he turned back into a pumpkin. He looked a lot more like the big-time draft bust that he had been for the past six seasons. So, all of a sudden, it looked like the Vikings might be the easier team for the Eagles in the divisional round. 

The Rams ended up beating the brakes off of the Vikings, and now Matt Stafford gets to make that cross-country trip. All’s well that ends well, or something like that.

After the game, we found out that this week is going to be even more difficult for the Rams.

That Monday night game was played in Arizona because of the wildfires in Los Angeles. After the game, the Rams are going to fly back to L.A. to prepare. That’s trouble because their ability to actually practice is still up in the air. They’ll probably find a way to do it, but if you’re a team looking to prepare for a playoff game, you’d rather not have to say, ‘We’ll figure out how to practice.’

Then again, they’ll have to fly all the way across the country for the game. Also, again, this is a short week for them. 

It’d probably make sense for them to just stay in Arizona or fly somewhere on the East Coast for the rest of the week, but given the whole mess that’s going on back at their home, it’s understandable that they would want to head back there.

The point is that this is just about as undesirable of a prep week as the Rams could possibly have. NFL players are creatures of habit, and this week will be the polar opposite of habitual.

Now, there are only eight teams left so that means every team gets more in-depth coverage from the national NFL people. ESPN put out one of their articles that’s written by a whole bunch of their NFL writers. This one was about why each team could win their divisional game.

For the Rams, Seth Walder writes, “Their stars can carry them to victory. Puka Nacua's total receiving yardage (990) in the regular season wasn't all that gaudy. But on a per-play basis, he was absurd, with 3.7 yards per route run, the third-best mark since 2007… he's healthy and can take over a playoff game…”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. The Rams have horses, we all know that, but horses can’t run without a jockey (this metaphor isn’t perfect), and an offense can’t do anything if their quarterback gets shut down. That just so happens to be what the Eagles' defense does best.

For the Eagles, Walder writes, “Why the Eagles will win: Their defense. Philadelphia can dominate at all three levels. Defensive tackles Jalen Carter and Milton Williams can create pressure from the interior, linebacker Zack Baun can generate stops against the run and the pass at the second level, and the secondary is capable of suffocating an opponent...”

If the Eagles win the Super Bowl, there will be ballads and tales written about this defense.

For posterity’s sake: The Rams have a good offense and that’s why they’ll win, while the Eagles have about as close to a perfect defense as there is, and that’s why they’ll win. Well… that seems just about as cut and dry as you can make it.

Walder continues, “And then there's Barkley. It's hard to forget about him… Barkley gives Philadelphia efficiency on the ground and is a safety net in case the passing game can't find its rhythm again.”

Ah yes. Saquon. What did he do against the Rams in Week 12? Nothing much. He just rushed for a cool 255 yards and two touchdowns. No big deal. 

It’s cool when your “safety net” rushes for 2,005 yards in a season and the 255 yards is the most a running back has had in a single game since 2010. That’s a hell of a safety net. Some would call him, ‘the emphasis of the entire offense,’ but to each their own.

Nakobe Dean is out for the season, and then some

With just under six minutes left in the second quarter, Packers’ quarterback Jordan Love threw a screen pass to tight end Tucker Kraft. Nakobe Dean saw the entire play unfold and came downhill fast to make the tackle for a three-yard loss.

Nakobe got up on one knee and looked down at his other one, knowing something was wrong. He was able to stand up and get the trainers to come onto the field. He slammed his helmet on the ground, put an arm over either trainer's shoulder, and limped off the field. A few minutes later, he was being carted into the locker room. 

And thus, ends the 2024 season for Nakobe Dean, and that really, really sucks. 

It turns out he tore his patellar tendon, which goes from your kneecap to your big shin bone. It’s not a super common knee injury, but it’s happened to players like former Seahawk and Saint tight end Jimmy Graham, former Giant wide receiver Victor Cruz, and former Buccaneer Cadillac Williams (who did it twice).

He was drafted in 2022 and spent that entire season on the bench behind Kyzir White and T.J. Edwards. Then in 2023, he had two separate Lisfranc Injuries that derailed his season. 

And then this? Man, it’s awful. He had been playing awesome this entire season, and then just like that, it was over. It’s tough.

Players can come back from torn patellar tendons and in 2016 NFL.com had an article talking about how it’s not necessarily a career-ender, so that’s really news. I’m not a doctor, far from it actually, but you’d have to hope that there have been some advances in tendon reconstruction surgeries in the past nine years because of medical technology and all that stuff… but again, not a doctor.

The reality of the situation is that Nakobe is going to be out for a long time. In the short term, which is objectively more important right now, Oren Burks is going to be filling in for Nakobe.

There are a few problems with this. First, Nakobe rocks. He was a perfect partner for Zack Baun. He wasn’t missing tackles and he was just an all-around solid linebacker who Vic Fangio trusted.

We don’t know how Burks is going to look as a full-time player in this defense and he’s going to have one hell of a test against the Rams and Sean McVay’s offense in the divisional round. That McVay offense is the exact kind of offense that will attack the middle of the field, especially if that’s literally the only weak spot.

There are things Vic Fangio can do to hide Burks if need be (make him play downhill, rotate safeties, and adjust zones) but hopefully, it doesn’t come to that.

We do know Burks can tackle though, which is good. His hit on Keisean Nixon on the opening kickoff in the Wild Card game made Nixon fumble. Obviously, those kinds of collisions and opportunities don’t happen on normal defensive plays, but we can only go on what we have seen, and we’ve seen a physical player.

If there is an upside to this, it’s that the future of the linebacker group is in limbo without Nakobe. Zack Baun is only on a one-year deal, and he’ll get paid an All-Pro’s salary in the offseason. Hopefully, Howie Roseman will be the one to pay him to keep some stability in that position for next year. That would be amazing.