It doesn’t get much better than landing Nakobe Dean in Round 3 of the NFL Draft.
Needless to say, there are quite a few Philadelphia Eagles fans that have been watching Georgia Bulldogs football over the past week… if they weren’t doing so already. It may have been NCAA football, but watching the Dawgs function on defense under UGA head coach Kirby Smart and defensive coordinator Dan Lanning was as close as a fan could come to watching an NFL-ready defense at the collegiate level. Part of the reason for that was the phenomenal play of Nakobe Dean.
This Unanimous All-American and Butkus Award winner helped lead Georgia to the College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy, notching 76 total tackles (36 were of the solo variety), six sacks, two interceptions, five pass breakups, and two forced fumbles along the way. Just like that, he was on many Eagles fans’ radars.
Most believed landing this six-foot-tall, 225-pounder in Round 1 would have been a wise move, so landing him in Round 2 would have, most certainly, been viewed as a value selection. Seeing him slip to Round 3 and seeing the Eagles get him anyway is almost like stealing.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein gave him a grade of 6.40 in his pre-draft profile of this star in the making, meaning he expects him to be a good starter within the first two seasons of his professional career. Here are three elite traits we expect to see him bring to the Birds’ defense, and frankly, we expect to see him do so fairly quickly.