{"id":58324,"date":"2025-05-17T21:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T21:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/58324\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T21:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T21:11:09","slug":"eagles-rookie-jihaad-campbell-could-end-up-at-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/58324\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles Rookie Jihaad Campbell Could End Up At Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Eagles made their pick that they traded up a spot for in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft, they announced him as \u201clinebacker\u201d Jihaad Campbell<\/a>, marking the first time the franchise used a first-round pick on the position in 46 years. Per Jeff McLane of The Philadelphia Inquirer, though, Campbell may find himself playing more on the edge<\/a> than off-ball in the NFL. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Four years ago, the Eagles watched Dallas take Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons<\/a>, whom they would eventually shift into a pass rusher. Philadelphia had needed to add to their pass rush but hadn\u2019t evaluated Parsons as a pass rusher. If they had, they could have selected him two spots before the Cowboys ended up landing him, and according to McLane, they might have. Parsons had started his career off-ball for the Nittany Lions, shifting to the edge for a season before moving back to linebacker and getting drafted. New Giants pass rusher Abdul Carter<\/a> also played almost entirely off-ball for the Nittany Lions two years ago before moving exclusively to the edge in 2024.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, seeing two such players in their division, the Eagles wanted to stay ahead of the curve and saw similar abilities in Campbell. When Campbell committed to Alabama out of IMG Academy (FL), he was a five-star edge prospect. Injuries to the Crimson Tide defense necessitated that Campbell fill in at linebacker, and he excelled at the position. After a season playing almost exclusively at linebacker in 2023, Campbell was utilized around the defense last year with a bit more versatility.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia wasn\u2019t going to make the same mistake they had with Parsons and made sure to evaluate his potential at both positions. In fact, they may have focused even more on his pass rushing potential, considering Campbell mentioned to the media that defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and outside linebackers\/defensive end coach Jeremiah Washburn were the coaches most involved in his pre-draft process.<\/p>\n

Looking at the roster, there\u2019s room for Campbell at both positions. The Eagles already took an underutilized defender in free agency in Zack Baun<\/a> and made him a productive off-ball linebacker last year. Baun, a former pass rusher at Wisconsin, also holds the versatility to play at both spots, so Campbell may fit in right alongside him as a second versatile weapon that can move across the front seven. Nakobe Dean<\/a> is still working his way back from last year\u2019s season-ending injury and may not be ready to open the season, and second-year backer Jeremiah Trotter<\/a> and rookie Smael Mondon Jr.<\/a> may not be ready to step up as starters just yet.<\/p>\n

If the team does feel comfortable with the makeup of their off-ball group for 2025, then there\u2019s no reason Campbell can\u2019t work in immediately in the pass rush. With the offseason departures of Josh Sweat<\/a> (free agency<\/a>) and Brandon Graham<\/a> (retirement<\/a>), there are plenty of passing rushing snaps and a starting spot across from Nolan Smith<\/a> up for grabs. Bryce Huff<\/a>, Jalyx Hunt<\/a>, Azeez Ojulari<\/a>, and Josh Uche<\/a> should all contribute and compete for the open starting job, but none of them have anything secured at the moment.<\/p>\n

The Eagles claim that they have not decided where Campbell will work as a rookie, and though the team has cross-trained players before, they seem to be under the impression that Campbell will need to stick with a single position group to start his career. Campbell is currently recovering from an in-season shoulder injury from last year after getting surgery in March. Additional medical red flags about his other shoulder and potentially his knee<\/a> kept the Buccaneers and several other teams from taking a chance from him in the first round, per ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler. Without any prognosis on his full recovery, the Eagles should have some time before they need to make this call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Eagles made their pick that they traded up a spot for in the first round of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[80,25,7,911,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-58324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-2025-nfl-draft","9":"tag-eagles","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jihaad-campbell","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","15":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114525233916572572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}