When the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Alabama linebacker Jihaad Campbell in the first round of this year’s NFL Draft, many said that they got the steal of the draft.
Campbell is already proving his worth in camp and is getting a lot of notice from fans and the media for his aggressive nature.
His intensity has some asking if the coaching staff should tell him to dial it back some.
According to Dave Zangaro, who covers the Eagles, Campbell threw Ben VanSumeren to the ground on the play and injured him. Apparently, Campbell has been doing this all camp. Campbell also tossed tight end Dallas Goedert to the ground and tried to punch the football out of the hands of Tanner McKee, who was wearing a red jersey.
The Eagles players don’t seem to mind the aggressiveness. "I’m excited for him," Goedert said. "I want to be able to pull people back, not push them forward. You don’t want someone where you’ve got to go and be like, ‘You gotta play harder, you gotta do this, you gotta do that.’ You gotta be like, ‘OK, you’re playing a little bit too hard, let’s tone it down a little bit.’ He’s definitely got that in him. He’s been doing a great job."
Campbell is joining a highly touted Eagles defense that shut down Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. He was first-team All-SEC and second-team All-American while he was at Alabama.
It appears, at least in the early part of training camp, that he will be a starter for the Eagles sooner than most think and that he will be terrorizing offenses as he did in the SEC while he was at Alabama, which is not good news for the rest of the NFL.