Over the next couple of weeks (basically whenever there isn't other news to cover), we'll take a look at every player on the Philadelphia Eagles' roster, and how they fit with the team heading into training camp. Today we'll look at the off ball linebackers.
Previous training camp previews
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver
Tight end / Fullback | Offensive tackle | Guard | Center
EDGE | Interior DL
The depth chart:
1 2 3 4
Zack Baun Jihaad Campbell Ben VanSumeren Lance Dixon
Jeremiah Trotter Smael Mondon Dallas Gant Nakobe Dean (Likely PUP)
Zack Baun
Baun went from a little-used edge rusher with the Saints the first four years of his career to a bona fide star player with the Eagles as an off-ball linebacker. During the regular season, Baun finished with 151 tackles, 3.5 sacks, 5 forced fumbles, 4 pass breakups, and an INT. He was named First-Team All-Pro, a Pro Bowler, and he finished in the top five in NFL Defensive Player of the Year voting.
During the playoffs, Baun turned his game up another notch as he led the NFL with 33 tackles and 2 INTs. He added a forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries, and 3 pass breakups.
He probably had the best Eagles linebacker season this century, and was rewarded this offseason with a three-year contract worth $51 million.
Nakobe Dean
Dean had a breakout season in 2024, making 128 tackles, three sacks, a forced fumble, two recoveries, and a game-sealing INT Week 9 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In the Eagles' Wildcard Round win over the Packers, Dean tore a patellar tendon, which is an extremely serious injury, as our Evan Macy laid out back in January. That ended his season, and he will very likely miss time in 2025 as well. Vic Fangio gave a timetable of August for Jihaad Campbell to get back on the practice field, but said Dean "won't be back for a while."
Dean has one year left on his contract, and if he hadn't suffered such a serious injury, he would have been a candidate for an early contract extension. Instead, he'll likely enter the 2025 season on the final year of his rookie deal. He'll almost certainly begin training camp on the PUP list, which will likely carry over into the regular season. Still, he'll be in the team's plans for 2025, and could be a reinforcement at some point later in the season.
Jihaad Campbell
The Eagles ended a 46-year span in which they didn't select a linebacker in the first round when they drafted Campbell 31st overall.
Campbell was recruited as an edge rusher out of high school, but he moved to linebacker at Alabama, with some occasional reps on the edge. He has prototypical linebacker size at 6'3, 235, and is an explosive athlete, finishing in at least the 89th percentile among linebackers in the 40-yard dash, 10-yard split, and broad jump.
In 2024, Campbell led Alabama with 117 tackles. The next-closest player on the team had 76. He also had 5 sacks, an INT, and a couple of forced fumbles. There was some curiosity where Campbell would line up for the Eagles initially, but off ball linebacker always made the most sense, and Fangio confirmed as much during the spring.
The selection of Campbell at 31st overall was largely hailed as a steal. Daniel Jeremiah had him 12th in his prospect rankings, while Dane Brugler had him 14th, and Mel Kiper had him 21st. So why did he fall? Well, he's injured. More specifically, he had surgery on a torn labrum following the 2024 season. That did not dissuade the Eagles from grading him very highly, but as noted above, Fangio said he won't practice until August.
Cooper DeJean missed the start of training camp a season ago, and he did not get much playing time early in the regular season. But once he got his footing, obviously he made a big impact. The Eagles will hope Campbell can eventually make an impact during his rookie season, but it may not happen right away.
Jeremiah Trotter, Jr.
Trotter is entering his second season with the Eagles. Coming out of college, he was thought of as an instinctive, smart, hard-nosed linebacker with obviously good bloodlines, but also a little undersized and lacking elite athleticism.
Throughout training camp and the preseason games during his rookie season, Trotter was around the ball quite a bit. During the regular season, he played in the regular defense in nine games:
• Seven of those games were in garbage time in blowout wins.
• One was the meaningless Week 18 game against the Giants.
• One was Week 17 against the Cowboys, his only playing time during the season that was meaningful from a team perspective.
Earlier this offseason, we published a film review of those appearances. I was encouraged by what I saw when reviewing his snaps, despite his lack of ideal speed.
Following Dean's injury, Trotter seemed poised to split snaps with Oren Burks in the regular defense in the Divisional Round Game against the Rams, but Burks started and Fangio said afterward that Burks "was doing OK," so he left well enough alone.
Trotter's main contributions as a rookie came on special teams. He played 295 special teams snaps during the regular season, and 83 in the playoffs. His highlight of the season was wrestling the ball away from Keisean Nixon at the bottom of a pile in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs against the Packers after a Burks forced fumble on a kickoff.
He'll be a core special teamer again in 2025, but he also has a chance to begin the season as a temporary starting off-ball linebacker opposing Zack Baun, with Dean very likely to begin the season on the PUP list, and Campbell still recovering from shoulder surgery.
I believe he has a certain base competency against the run and in zone coverage, and should be fine if Fangio calls on him to play a meaningful role, but I also believe that the defensive staff will be smart about what they ask him to do within the structure of the defense, given his athletic limitations.
Smael Mondon
Mondon is a fifth-round rookie. He was a five-star recruit out of high school, ranked 21st in the country by 247Sports and 11th by ESPN recruiting. He didn't play much as a freshman in 2021 in Georgia's loaded defense, but he led the 2022 National Champion Bulldogs in tackles with 76. In 2024, he had 57 tackles, 3 sacks, and 3 pass breakups. Obviously, he'll join some old Georgia friends in the Eagles defense.
Mondon has ideal length to get into passing lanes, as well as impressive quickness and change of direction ability. He's a little different from Eagles linebackers like Nakobe Dean and Jeremiah Trotter, who are better against the run than they are against the pass. Mondon is better against the pass than he is against the run. Highlights:
Mondon was also often used in Georgia's defense as a QB spy, and the Eagles are going to have to deal with Jayden Daniels for the foreseeable future. Early in his career, he could carve out a role in passing down sub-packages, and is also likely to be a core special teamer.
With Dean on the shelf for the foreseeable future, Campbell not likely to start practicing until August, and Baun likely to get some rest days so he's fresh for the regular season, Mondon is going to get a ton of reps in training camp, which could be a nice opportunity for him.
Ben VanSumeren
We covered VanSumeren with the tight ends / fullbacks already, but it's also worth noting that he had a good camp at linebacker last year, earning his way onto the 53-man roster. It'll be interesting to see if he plays strictly at fullback this summer, or if the Eagles also get him some reps at linebacker in case they need to dip deep into their reserves this season.
Dallas Gant
Gant was an undrafted rookie free agent last season who appeared in two games for the Eagles as a practice squad callup. He had 2 tackles. He originally enrolled at Ohio State as a four-star recruit, but didn't get much playing time and transferred to Toledo, where he earned first-team All-MAC honors in 2023.
The Eagles have three other Toledo players on their roster — CB Quinyon Mitchell, LB Lance Dixon, and S Maxen Hook.
Lance Dixon
Dixon is an undrafted rookie free agent who played at Penn State, West Virginia, and Toledo. He was suspended at WVU after 6 games in 2023, and never returned to the team. In 2024 with Toledo, he had 46 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 FFs, 4 PBUs.