Eagles fly under the radar with recent linebacker signing
Nicholas Morrow has always flown below the radar. Once a backup offensive lineman in high school, he played linebacker for little-known Greenville University in Illinois. Now he’s one of three NFL players from a Division III school and the newest member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Morrow joined the Las Vegas Raiders as an undrafted free agent in 2017, playing in all 16 games with five starts. In five years with the team, he had 254 tackles, four sacks, a forced fumble and one interception.
The Raiders re-signed Morrow to a one-year deal in 2021, but he missed the entire season with an ankle injury sustained at the end of training camp. He signed with the Chicago Bears a year later and put up the best numbers of his career.
As a member of the Bears, Morrow had a career-high 116 tackles (83 solo) and played in all 17 games for Chicago. But it's easy to overlook a player when he plays for one of the NFL’s worst defenses.
Philadelphia can offer more help, but not much experience at the linebacker position. The Eagles lost their leading tacklers when T.J. Edwards left for Chicago and Kyzir White went to Arizona. In fact, Morrow’s 79 games played are second only to Haason Reddick among the team’s current linebackers.
The team used a third-round pick on Nakobe Dean in last year’s draft and although he was a well-known member of Georgia’s 2021 championship team, he couldn’t crack the starting lineup in 2022.
Dean needs to play in 2023 and Morrow’s experience should help. Big-name linebackers don’t exactly fall from the sky these days, but players like Morrow help good teams stay the course.
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