Young And Athletic, But Will Eagles Linebackers Be Good Enough?

Zack Baun likes what he sees when he walks into the linebacker meeting room. “Young, obviously; athletic, very athletic,” he said when asked during the Eagles minicamp earlier this month about the room he is expected to help lead this season.

Young and athletic is accurate. Good enough? Well, isn’t that the age-old question with the Eagles and their linebackers?

Typically, the answer is proven to be yes. In the 2017 Super Bowl season, there were Mychal Kendricks and Nigel Bradham. In the 2022 Super Bowl season, there were T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White. And last year’s Super Bowl team had Baun and Nakobe Dean.

There have been other times when it’s been Nate Gerry and Kamu Grugier-Hill, like in 2019, or 2020 when it was Alex Singleton and Duke Riley. In 2023, when the Eagles faltered late in the year, it was Zach Cunnigham and Nicholas Morrow.

None of those groupings were good enough. That jury is still out this year, with the Eagles having to find a replacement for Nakobe Dean, who continues to rehab from a torn patellar tendon in an early January playoff win over the Packers.

In Dean’s place is expected to be Jeremiah Trotter, Jr, who will enter his second year at the age of just 22 and with just 104 defensive snaps (10 percent) on his resume. It was Trotter getting most of the first-team reps during the Eagles’ spring workouts.

If Trotter stumbles for whatever reason, the Eagles don’t have many middle linebacker options. Baun can move there if need be, but he excelled off the ball last year.

Campbell, who is just 21, is more of an off-ball linebacker, and Smael Mondon, who is 22, played mostly off-ball LB at Georgia, and is 6-2, 224,. They are athletic enough to handle the middle, but that would be a big adjustment for rookies.

There are a pair of undrafted free agents too watch – Lance Dixon and Dallas Gant. Dixon is a rookie from Toledo and Gant was an undrafted free agent originally signed by the Vikings last year, but played two games with the Eagles this season on special teams.

Like Mondon, both Gant and Dixon are 6-2, 224. Could they hold up in the middle? Can Baun, who is listed as 6-3, 225, hold up if he needs to move inside? Trotter isn't very big either, at 6-0, 225, but the job looks to be his, and it would answer plenty of questions if he can hold up and do it well.