{"id":76722,"date":"2025-05-25T01:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T01:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/76722\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T01:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T01:02:11","slug":"its-definitely-something-thats-helping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/76722\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s definitely something that’s helping’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever gets Dean back to full strength, dancing to the football in tandem with fellow linebacker Zack Baun<\/a>, the Eagles will be all the better for it.<\/p>\n

The two formed a formidable linebacking duo last season for Philly, leading the NFL’s second-ranked scoring defense as its top two tacklers. Dean contributed 128, with three sacks, two fumbles recoveries and an interception, while Baun had 151, plus 3.5 sacks, a pick and a whopping five forced fumbles.<\/p>\n

It culminated in a Lombardi-lifting campaign for the Eagles in which Baun cemented himself as an All-Pro and Dean showcased at long last the talent that made him a third-round pick in 2022.<\/p>\n

But Dean’s need for durability extends beyond his injury this past year. He dealt with a torn pectoral that might have contributed to a slide during his draft process, and in 2023 spent two different stints on injured reserve due to foot injuries that limited him to five games.<\/p>\n

Increasing his mobility while activating muscles in a different way than he typically does patrolling the middle of the field will hopefully help offset some injury risk in the future — even if his new activity hasn’t inspired him to quit his day job anytime soon.<\/p>\n

“I’m more interested in the performance, looking at it… but I’m a football player through and through,” Dean said.<\/p>\n

“My whole thing is trying to be the absolute best version of myself. For me, that’s greatness. If I’m striving to be that everyday, and doing whatever it takes to be that.”<\/p>\n

BalletX next takes the stage as part of its summer series from July 16-20<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Depending on when Eagles veterans report to training camp, perhaps Dean will be able to take in a performance by the company before gearing up to put on one of his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whatever gets Dean back to full strength, dancing to the football in tandem with fellow linebacker Zack Baun,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[1227,7,477,88,609,4267,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-76722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nakobe-dean","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-no-minute","13":"tag-offseason-news","14":"tag-philadelphia-eagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114565778362796165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76722","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=76722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}