Photo: Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire

Winning the Super Bowl is one of the hardest achievements in sport, if not the hardest. With the recent addition of a 17th regular season game, teams will have to play 20 or 21 games to earn the right to hoist up the Lombardi Trophy. 

Nobody is ever at 100 percent come playoff time due to the sheer physical nature of the NFL. In the playoffs, the margins are as slim as ever and injuries can derail a team’s dreams. We saw it this past weekend when the Packers were decimated with in-game injuries on offense at wide receiver and offensive line. That’s definitely not the only reason why they lost, but it never felt like the Packers could make a late game comeback that shorthanded. 

However, the most impactful injury from that game was when Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean tore his patellar tendon late in the 2nd quarter that will sideline him for the rest of the playoffs, and potentially, part of the 2025 season. 

Dean had a breakout 2024 season in his first season under defensive coordinator Vic Fangio where he beat out veteran free-agent Devin White for the starting Mike LB position. Dean finished the season ranked as the 7th-best LB in Run Defense Total Points with 20. Among all LBs with 50 tackles, he ranked 4th in Run Defense Total Points Per Play.

Against the Rams in Week 12, he was a force to be reckoned with, registering 8 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 1 sack, and 1 fumble recovery in a performance that generated 3 Total Points. 

It’s hard to draw conclusions from a one-game sample size, however, against the Packers, the Eagles were clearly better at stopping the run before Dean exited the game. The table below shows the rushing splits for when Dean was on and off the field:

Packers Offense With Nakobe Dean …

Despite facing a similar amount of rushes, the Packers were able to find more success on the ground with Dean sidelined. Now, some of this could be attributed to game flow, however, I don’t think that’s the only reason. 

Take for instance, Josh Jacobs’ 31-yard run to end the 3rd quarter on an outside zone run concept. On this play, Dean’s replacement, Oren Burks, gets caught overpursuing, allowing Jacobs to cut back. Burks is able to track back before Jacobs ultimately breaks his attempted tackle before bulldozing through another couple defenders before getting brought down at the 1. 

Now, that is just one individual play that included an incredible individual effort by Jacobs. However, Sean McVay, one of the league’s best game-planners and play-designers is going to try and exploit the absence of Dean in a number of ways. 

McVay loves to use motion and play action as the Rams rank 2nd and 10th in motion and play action usage, respectively. Utilizing motion and play-action puts a lot of stress on opposing defenses, especially LBs, as McVay crafts unique ways to create leverage advantages for his blockers. 

McVay and the Rams utilize a zone-heavy running scheme to set up easy rushing lanes off of the leverage advantage mentioned above. The table below shows the EPA Per Play for the Rams offense and Eagles defense when running or facing zone runs this season: 

On Zone Runs

This is where McVay and the Rams will have their best chance to take advantage of Dean’s absence. Zone-running schemes are built around setting up cut-back lanes to take advantage of over-pursuing LBs. Sound familiar to the Jacobs play above? 

McVay will look to cause confusion pre-snap against the Eagles defense as the players in the  Eagles back 7 will need to be on point with their communication. That is a lot more difficult when the heart and soul of the middle of your defense is sitting on the sidelines. 

Luckily for the Eagles, Burks should have some familiarity with facing McVay’s Rams as he was a member of the 49ers for the past two seasons. He’s also all too familiar with replacing an impact LB in the playoffs, as he filled in for Dre Greenlaw in last year’s Super Bowl after Greenlaw suffered a freak Achilles injury running on to the field. That was another reminder of how one injury can change a playoff game and leave a franchise and its fanbase asking “What if?”

Burks is accustomed to this situation and was also able to get some much-needed experience as he started the final two games of the season with Dean sidelined with an abdominal injury. He also was the one to force the fumble on the opening kickoff that totally flipped the script of the Wild Card game. 

The Eagles will need to rely on Zack Baun, another breakout LB that earned All-Pro honors in his first year with the Eagles. He’ll be tasked with the responsibilities of relaying play-calls and handling all communications, although he does have experience this year, as he wears the green dot during dime packages when Dean would get subbed off. 

Replacing Dean’s play on the field will be difficult enough, but replacing the intangibles that he brings day-in and day-out as a leader of the defense will be even more paramount as they try and make a run to the Super Bowl.