PHILADELPHIA — Don’t put Jihaad Campbell in a box.
Howie Roseman refused to. The Philadelphia Eagles general manager went so far as to intercept a question intended for Nick Sirianni about the head coach’s admitted usage of player comparisons (“what player comps came up with Campbell?”) and spike it to the ground (“that puts Coach in a bad spot,” Roseman said).
Don’t say Campbell is an off-ball linebacker. Yes, his draft placard does say LB. Yes, Campbell played the “Mike” and “Will” roles as a two-year starter for the Alabama Crimson Tide, for whom he flourished into an All-American game-wrecker by amassing 11.5 tackles for loss and five sacks in his final season. But defensive coordinator Kane Wommack maximized Campbell’s explosiveness by ranging him across multiple alignments, including off the edge or slightly walking out in space.
Roseman and his personnel staff fell in love with that versatility. Campbell was a “top-10 player” on their draft board, Roseman said. The Eagles were unconcerned by the injury that made it possible for them to draft Campbell at all. He suffered a slight labrum tear in his left shoulder while playing in December’s ReliaQuest Bowl and underwent surgery in March.
When Campbell, widely considered a mid-first round talent, fell into the 20s, reports emerged that Roseman was working the phones to trade up. Roseman confirmed he was trying to acquire Campbell.
The Eagles war room had to endure a suspenseful hour of watching the Green Bay Packers shop their No. 23 pick before ultimately selecting Texas wide receiver Matthew Golden, the New York Giants trade up to No. 25 with the Houston Texans to draft Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart and the Atlanta Falcons trading up to No. 26 with the Los Angeles Rams to pick Tennessee edge rusher James Pearce Jr.
At any of those slots — or the others that followed – there was the possibility that Philadelphia’s prized prospect would be snatched away. The Eagles were so fearful that another team would leapfrog them that they traded their No. 164 pick to the Kansas City Chiefs to move up just one spot to take Campbell No. 31.
Roseman partly constructed a Super Bowl-winning roster by being aggressive in the draft (he’s now traded up in the first round in four of the last five drafts), and the approach yet again netted the Eagles the sort of formidable reinforcement for the trenches that Roseman covets.
But don’t say Campbell is an edge rusher, either. Yes, he’d been a five-star recruit at IMG Academy while playing along the defensive perimeter. Yes, he led all linebackers at the combine in the shuffle sprint (19.45 mph) and fascinated scouts during pass rush drills throughout his evaluation process. But Roseman was reluctant to place such a label on his newest defender. “We think he’s a versatile player who can do a lot of different things,” he said.
The Eagles have long viewed football imaginatively under the ownership of Jeffrey Lurie. But the influence defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has had on the way Roseman and the Eagles view defenders can’t be ignored. The organization had significantly lowered its investment in off-ball linebackers by the time Fangio arrived last offseason. The Zack Baun story is now a well-known part of Fangio’s lore.
Roseman initially brought Baun to Fangio’s attention as a potential edge rusher to sign, and Fangio instead saw in Baun the traits of an off-ball linebacker (although Baun had rarely played the position). Baun prospered into an All-Pro while playing on a one-year contract, then signed a three-year, $51 million extension that made him the highest-paid linebacker in Eagles history.
The Eagles’ acquisition of Campbell is yet another step forward in placing a higher value on the linebacker position. It’d be inaccurate to group Campbell with Jerry Robinson, who, in 1979, was the last off-ball linebacker the Eagles picked in the first round. The increased value at linebacker for the Eagles is in not restricting it to the traditional sense of the word. When I asked Roseman how much Fangio had expanded his view of what an off-ball linebacker can do in terms of value for a defense, Roseman first qualified his response by saying, “I don’t wanna put this player in that box.”
“This guy can grow into anything you want,” Roseman continued. “And what I’m saying is Vic has done a tremendous job with kind of educating me on the way that he looks at things and the way I look at things. … Zack Baun’s a great example. These guys, they can rush from the edge, they can play in space, they can affect the quarterback from depth, from the edge, and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for guys like that. The league has changed. And I think the league is a speed game and when you have guys with those kind of explosive qualities, you wanna get as many as you can.”
Think hybrids. Think Andrew Van Ginkel. In his final year with the Miami Dolphins, while playing under Fangio in 2023, Van Ginkel played 12.2 percent of his defensive snaps in the box, according to Pro Football Focus. He flourished into a Pro Bowler with the Minnesota Vikings the following season while recording a career-high 11.5 sacks and 18 tackles for loss in a similar role.
Think Micah Parsons. The two-time All-Pro played more than half of his defensive snaps inside the box during his rookie season. But that percentage has steadily decreased across his four years with the Dallas Cowboys.
Campbell himself wouldn’t offer up a position he considers home. “I think just being a dominant force for the defense,” he told reporters on a Zoom call late Thursday night. Tracking Campbell’s usage (and tutelage with position coaches) will be the most significant narrative once he arrives at the NovaCare Complex.
It’s still uncertain exactly when Campbell will be ready to resume football activities. He didn’t give a target date for his recovery from shoulder surgery, only saying he was taking it “day-by-day” and enthusiastically adding that he’d be getting in a workout the following morning to ensure he stays on track.
How much off-ball linebacker will Campbell play? How much will he line up along the edge? These are questions that will eventually be residual data from the impending creativity of Fangio and the rest of the Eagles staff.
The Eagles do have depth needs at inside linebacker. Starting “Mike” linebacker Nakobe Dean could miss the beginning of the 2025 season while recovering from the torn patellar tendon he suffered during the playoffs. It’s possible that Campbell can absorb some of those snaps in some form. But Roseman made clear that Campbell was not picked to replace Dean, who is also entering the final year of his rookie contract. “This wasn’t a need pick,” Roseman said. “This was, for us, a player we had tremendous passion about.”
“No, we have a lot of confidence in Nakobe Dean. This has nothing to do with Nakobe. This had to do with the fact that we had a top ten talent on our board. We love the player and we love the versatility. For us, that was it. That was really it. If we start drafting for need, or we start turning down top-10 players when we’re picking in the 30s, it’s not going to be good for our football team.”
(Top photo of Jihaad Campbell: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
