Top 25 Current Eagles: LB Nicholas Morrow Checks in at No. 24

The former Chicago Bears linebacker could be a sleeper on this year's team and warranted a spot in the rankings on one of the beat writers' lists

PHILADELPHIA - For the second consecutive year,  SI.com's Eagles Today beat reporters Ed Kracz and John McMullen will be ranking the top 25 Philadelphia Eagles players for the upcoming season in advance of the team's training camp, which is a mere five weeks away with the team set to report on July 25.

The list began at No. 25, with running back Kenny Gainwell claiming that spot on the strength of McMullen giving the third-year Memphis product all the love he would need to reach that spot, putting him at No. 23 on his list and giving him three points.

Gainwell didn’t make it on Kracz’s list.

On to No. 24, which comes at the linebacker position, a group with some question marks attached.

LB NICHOLAS MORROW

The process behind the top-25 list started with Kracz and McMullen putting together their own top 25 players independent of each other’s rankings and then assigning point values, with 25 points awarded to the player ranked first on each list, 24 to the player ranked second, and so on, with one point going to the player that was put 25th.

The highest ranking from either reporter breaks any ties in the ballot.

Gainwell did not make Kracz’s list, but Morrow did, checking in at No. 22 on his list, giving him four points. That’s all he got because McMullen did not include Morrow on his list.

Free agency was a week old when the Eagles and Morrow came to terms on a one-year contract.

Philly needed bodies at the position after losing T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White in free agency. They needed someone to play alongside second-year Nakobe Dean, who is short on experience at the NFL level after making it onto the field for just 34 defensive snaps as a rookie.

Turns out, the Eagles didn’t just get a body.

They got Morrow, who started all 17 games for the Chicago Bears in 2022.

Undrafted in 2017 out of Division III Greenville (Illinois), Morrow signed with the then-Oakland Raiders and spent five years trying to transition from safety to linebacker despite being just 6-0, 230 pounds.

Asked on June 1 what was the most difficult part of the transition, Morrow dove into detail.

“Playing in the blocks,” he said. “You gotta understand gap integrity. So, when I came into the league, we were a single high. So, a lot of it was you were attached to a gap. So, you got the A gap, or the B gap.

“But you come in and you’re playing split safety, so now you got two gaps. So maybe, the run goes that way, you got A gap. The run goes this way, you got C gap. So, you gotta understand how that works, and understanding the run fits, can be challenging, especially if you’ve never done it before … Your point of view changes.”

Morrow seems to have figured it out, collecting 116 tackles, 11 for loss, and one interception in his lone season with the Bears. He likely caught the Eagles’ attention during the regular season, when he led all tacklers in their regular-season matchup in Week 15 with 11 tackles, one for loss.

In 79 career games, with 46 starts, he has 370 tackles, 31 tackles for loss, 15 quarterback hits, four sacks, and three interceptions.

Morrow could be this year’s sleeper, sort of the way cornerback Patrick Robinson was for the Eagles' 2017 Super Bowl championship team, and as such, warranted a spot in the top 25.

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Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.

Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.

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