PHILADELPHIA -- When the Philadelphia Eagles first team defense took the field, Zack Baun and Devin White were the starting linebackers. Nakobe Dean was on the sidelines, not being handed a starting spot like he was last season.
That's just fine with Dean, who has battled plenty of adversity since arriving in Philadelphia two years ago. The Georgia football product prefers competition.
"Oh, man, every time you got a competition, you got guys like that who fly around and everyone's making plays, we always feed off each other," Dean said earlier this week. "We want each other to make plays, but you also want to make plays. The competition don't do nothing but make everyone better in the whole room."
Dean can't wait to show the Eagles what he can do in the padded practices coming up, an opportunity to earn a starting job that was once his. The Eagles essentially handed Dean his starting linebacker job last season, a year marred by subpar play and more time off the field than on it.
He'll disagree with that assessment.
"I never been handed anything since I started playing ball, so it's like, me having to work for everything has kind of been my M.O. since I started playing," Dean said. "And I'm still doing it today."
Dean played just five games last season with multiple foot injuries, the secodn as LisFranc injury that shut down his season early November. He admitted he wasn't even cleared for full activity until June, so he played catch up this summer.
"I don't know if you know, but I didn't get cleared until the last week of minicamp," Dean said. "So after that, in the summertime, it was just kind of pushing myself to get ready because I didn't have that real offseason to push myself to get into that (top) shape.
"So the six weeks in the summer is when I did it."
Dean has been mixing in with the first team at some points in camp, looking to see those opportunities grow with his play on the field. Nick Sirianni is excited to see what Dean can do over these next several weeks, while Vic Fangio won't budge much on his progress.
Again, that's just fine with Dean. He'll let his play on the field do the talking.
"I did a lot of hard work to make sure I came back to camp in some of the best shape of my life," Dean said. "Just getting back out there, I'm going to continue to get better, and I'm excited."
