The Eagles were up, but on their heels.
Their clock-killing offensive drive hit a wall, and Jake Elliott’s 57-yard field goal try to at least put them up by eight late missed.
Trevor Lawrence and the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars got the ball back with limited time and started marching down the field, down to the Philadelphia 13 yard line and to the doorstep of taking a lead in a game that, not even an hour before, had looked like it was falling well out of their grasp.
The Eagles were on the verge of collapse, and on the snap, Lawrence went for the finishing blow.
But Nakobe Dean picked up on it.
Jaguars running back D’Ernest Johnson ran a wheel route left to the front pylon of the end zone, going for the score as Dean tracked him in coverage man-to-man.
Three months ago, back in training camp, Dean got beat by a similar play. Teammate Kenny Gainwell torched him on the same route to take off for a touchdown in practice, and the third-year linebacker kept that sequence in the back of his mind.
So when he saw Johnson break out of the backfield for that pivotal play on Sunday, he knew exactly what to do. Dean stayed glued to him.
Lawrence lofted the ball up toward the end zone. Johnson turned at the goal line but bumped into Dean, only able to watch and swat a hand up at the ball as it sailed over his head.
Dean jumped up after the pass behind him and stretched out both arms as he went falling back. The ball fell straight into his hands.
Interception. Game (effectively) over. The Eagles survived, 28-23, as Dean got up and leaped over the nearby wall as fans and teammates swarmed him in celebration.
“Usually when somebody runs that play on the offensive side of ball – I remember after I got beat on it, talking to Kenny and [Jalen Hurts] in training camp – that’s the primary route,” Dean recalled of the leadup to his pick postgame, still holding the winning ball at his side at the press conference podium. “So I knew that if [Lawrence] thought he liked the matchup, he was gonna throw it.”
But Dean wasn’t getting beat this time.
Three months was a long time ago, and he’s come a long way since.
“A lot,” Dean said. “See, emotionally, physically as a football player, you know, you go in – definitely before the season starts – you go in thinking you’re a smart player, that you know a lot of things, and then you start going through things that just never happened to you as far as on the field.
“You just continue to learn from that and continue to grow from it.”
He’s come even further from the three years since he’s been drafted, too.
Picked up by the Eagles in the third round (83rd overall) of the 2022 NFL Draft, Dean was the leading linebacker of that stacked, National Championship-winning Georgia Bulldogs defense and figured to be a diamond-in-the-rough key to the Eagles’ future, during a stretch where GM Howie Roseman and the front office seemingly prioritized stacking up on as many Georgia defensive prospects as possible – between Dean, Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith, Kelee Ringo, and Jalen Carter.
Dean’s NFL transition just hadn’t been quick, or all that smooth.
The 2022 season brought little to worry about. The Eagles were loaded and well on their way to the NFC title, while Dean was getting his feet wet as a rookie mostly through special teams reps.
They came back for 2023, however, woefully thin at linebacker, and banked on trusting Dean with a lot in the hopes that he would be ready to step up in a major way for his Year 2. The Eagles opened camp with him having the green dot and radio in his helmet to relay the defensive calls while manning the middle of the field.
But that plan just never panned out. A Lisfranc foot injury took away Dean’s season, and the middle quickly became an easily exploitable hole within the Eagles’ defense that contributed to 2023’s late-season spiral.
The Eagles knew they needed to come back with more linebacking depth to contend in 2024, going into the next summer leaning on outside veteran additions Zack Baun and Devin White, with the emphasis, at least initially, taken off of Dean.
Though something was different about the 23-year old in camp.
Yeah, he was healthy again, but there was a distinct edge to him, too. He was moving on plays with more purpose, decisiveness, and of course, aggressiveness than he did before, and was suddenly pressing after a starting spot again by the end of the preseason, which ultimately set up Dean and Baun as the lead linebacking tandem while White never dressed and was eventually sent on his way.
The start of 2024 certainly wasn’t perfect out of the gate – between the last-second loss against the Falcons in Week 2 and the pummeling from Tampa Bay in Week 4 that saw the Eagles’ defense get picked apart with a ton of missed tackles, from Dean included – but after four straight wins since coming back from the bye, on a run where the Eagles hadn’t given up a defensive touchdown until the Bengals game now going on two weeks ago, something clicked.
Dean has played a major role in that.
“It’s been a long road,” Nick Sirianni said of Dean’s career so far after Sunday’s win. “He’s had to battle. He was behind two really good players when he was a rookie and he played on special teams, and then last year, he had an injury that sidelined him. I think we’ve all just had a ton of confidence in Nakobe, and he continues to get better.”
“I think one thing that makes Nakobe special is his mind and his leadership,” the Eagles head coach continued. “He’s constantly working on that. Like, I’m walking downstairs one evening late, and he’s still in there watching tape. He’s got a special work ethic, which allows him to make special plays like he did today.”
And he earned the moment.
The Eagles were up, but on their heels, and the Jaguars were running a play for the win that, three months ago, Dean gets beat on.
But he remembered it, and stuck to his man once he recognized what was happening.
Then he leaped up and saved the day.
“I kind of was like waiting on it,” Dean said, football still in hand under the dais. “It was an opportune time. It was high red zone. They knew what we were in, they knew 3-by-1 when we were at the end of the game.
“They got the read right. I just had to make a play.”
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