Jihaad Campbell paused briefly in the middle of answering a question last week inside the Eagles’ locker room at the NovaCare Complex. The linebacker was drinking his post-practice smoothie too quickly and needed to take a beat.
A few weeks ago, Campbell passed protein-packed gummies to a few reporters near his locker stall, playfully offering a snack in a trade for an interview request.
It is easy to forget sometimes that Campbell, who is playing pretty high-level football and is 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, is still so young. The Eagles might go win another Super Bowl, and Campbell could parade down Broad Street before his first year being able to legally buy alcohol in the U.S. is over.
That Campbell is a 21-year-old rookie is necessary context, considering the topic on the day of his smoothie-induced brain freeze. Since Nakobe Dean has returned to the defense after recovering from a patellar tendon injury, Campbell’s usage has declined.
On Sunday, Campbell played his lowest number of total snaps (20) and his lowest snap share (34%) of the season. The addition of Jaelan Phillips, too, has meant less need for Campbell, a hybrid inside-outside linebacker, to take snaps along the defensive line. He lined up there just three times Sunday and 17 times in the box as a linebacker, according to Pro Football Focus.
Compare that to Week 6 — when Dean returned but only as a special-teamer — and the decline in playing time is pretty drastic. That week, in a Thursday night road loss to the New York Giants, Campbell played 45 snaps from the box, 13 along the line, and four at a corner spot. His 62 defensive reps represented 90% of the possible snaps.
Campbell has taken it all in stride. If Dean had been healthy at the beginning of the season, perhaps this current rotation, with Campbell being used part time, would have been what happened from the jump.
Vic Fangio’s defense is new to Campbell, and though he performed well against the run and in coverage during the early weeks, he knows he still has a lot of learning to do.
“It’s football,” Campbell said. “The opportunity is going to present itself whether I get less snaps or not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is us winning, us executing, us playing together, and, at the end of the day, it’s all about the opportunity.
“The biggest thing is just staying prepared, not getting down, and just staying prepared, understanding the game plan and what has to happen, so when it is my time to go in the game, I know exactly what I have to do, when I have to do it, with full confidence.”
The last two weeks, Campbell has been in for about an equal amount of running plays (25) as passing plays (28), and he was in for just one pass-rushing snap in each of the last two games.
Dean is looking like the player who broke out in a big way in 2024 next to Zack Baun, but Fangio said he wants to continue rotating Campbell in to make sure the rookie is “ready to roll” if he is needed more often. There is a learning curve in all of this, Fangio explained last week, particularly when Campbell is asked to play outside linebacker.
“All camp and everything, he was strictly inside because we knew Nakobe was going to miss seven games or whatever it was,” Fangio said. “For a rookie, that’s tough.”
Fangio likened it to last season, when the Eagles “messed” with Quinyon Mitchell a little bit during camp. They had the cornerback working at nickel during the early portions of the offseason program and eventually let him settle in as a corner on the right side.
With Cooper DeJean, they started him as a backup nickel and starting dime cornerback because of the time he missed at the beginning of training camp. Once DeJean was settled in as the starting nickel, he took off.
“You don’t want to give a rookie too many extra jobs, but sometimes you’re forced to,” Fangio said.
Fangio said he does whatever is best for the team when asked how he balanced what he puts on Campbell’s plate in a given week. Winning a given game, Fangio said, is more important than taking into consideration Campbell’s long-term development.
The Eagles traded up a spot to draft Campbell 31st out of Alabama in fear of another team trading into the spot to grab him. They view him as a versatile defender who will be part of the defense for years to come. Dean, it’s worth mentioning, is in the final year of his contract, and it remains to be seen what will happen in the offseason.
Campbell, a South Jersey native, is so far loving life in the NFL and playing so close to home. Sometimes, he said, he forgets what week on the schedule it is.
“I’m just like practice, practice, practice, next game,” he said. “Practice, practice, practice, next game.”
Campbell said his confidence keeps “growing and growing” every week, even as his workload during games has changed.
“A lot of people can view it as a lot,” Campbell said. “But for me it’s like a day-by-day process and understanding what I have to do to attack the day at a high level and execute the plays that I need to and do what I got drafted here for.
“I truly believe that the situations I’m being put in, it’s a great opportunity to display my skills and display who I am. Of course, there’s learning and growing and different stuff like that, but I think the biggest thing is just me being where my feet are, me getting better with practice and after practice, 500 shots, working on my pass rush, working to continue to be a better linebacker.
“Just being a complete overachiever, a guy that just loves to work and just loves being around this great group of guys here.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about getting a win.”
