How Can Eagles Be ‘Pleased’ at LB? Inside Roster Search

Myles Jack and Zach Cunningham will get the first opportunity to halt the Philadelphia Eagles' woes at linebacker.

PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni did a good job straddling the fence before his team’s lone open practice of the summer in front of 50,000-plus fans at Lincoln Financial Field but actions always speak louder than words.

It was hardly the best kept-secret around the NovaCare Complex that GM Howie Roseman was aware that his team needed help at off-ball linebacker, something magnified when promising second-year player Nakobe Dean tweaked his ankle at practice last week.

Without Dean in the mix for a few days, a group that looked thin on paper turned almost transparent, resulting in a sped-up carpet-bombing process first unveiled by Roseman at defensive tackle in-season during the run toward Super Bowl LVII.

When then-rookie Jordan Davis suffered a high-ankle sprain in 2022 and Marlon Tuipulotu went down with a knee injury, the Eagles took one look at Marvin Wilson and decided to bring in ring-shopping veterans Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh to identical prorated one-year deals.

This year it happened in a quicker fashion during camp after Roseman got enough looks at Christian Elliss, Nicholas Morrow, and Shaun Bradley getting extensive first-team reps. At one point on Sunday raw undrafted rookie Ben VanSumeren, someone Sirianni himself called a developmental player, even got a few first-team looks as the defensive play-caller.

Something had to be done.

The something turned out to be veterans Myles Jack and Zach Cunningham on identical one-year, $2.5 million deals.

The presumption is that the better of those two players over the remaining days of the summer will take the field opposite Dean in Foxborough on Sept. 10 against the New England Patriots.

As per their nature, the Eagles are just playing it cautiously with Dean and if Sunday’s event was a game instead of a practice, you get the distinct feeling Dean would have suited up and played.

“I feel really good about Nakobe,” Sirianni said of the 2021 Butkus Award winner at Georgia who plate adjust 34 defensive snaps as a rookie as the Eagles’ third LB behind T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White. “When he was out there, he was doing a nice job running the defense, being in position to make plays. Had a really big splash play, knocking that ball out, and has done really good as far as just in coverage and just being around the football and knowing what to do.

“So really pleased with where Nakobe is right now.”

Dean has missed two consecutive practices and the team work in three straight with an injury that has been described as day-to-day by the team.

Jack and Cunningham are here to provide competition for everyone else and also serve as an insurance policy in case Dean isn’t the second coming of Edwards, never mind Bobby Wagner or Fred Warner.

Sirianni, meanwhile, is serving two masters by staying positive when it comes to the guys who were here just in case there isn’t much left in the gas tanks of Jack and Cunningham.

“Pleased with the room,” Sirianni tried to sell. “We were low at numbers there and we wanted to bring in some competition to further drive the level up. That's all that competition does. That's why it's one of our core values.”

Those words turn pale when measured against the actions, however, and a league source told SI.com’s Eagles Today that Roseman isn’t done at the position until something clicks.

The goal for everyone in this drama, be it the newcomers or the original cast, is to force Roseman to stop looking with demonstrated performance.

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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen