Nolan Smith’s big game reflects the Eagles LB’s continued growth

According to Vic Fangio, Nolan Smith possesses a mindset that the defensive coordinator hasn’t typically found in the undersized edge rushers of today’s game.

The 6-foot-2, 238-pound Smith is the smallest player in the Eagles’ three-man edge rusher rotation, which also includes Josh Sweat and Jalyx Hunt. Still, Fangio said that the second-year outside linebacker is playing with a high level of physicality against the run and the pass that helps compensate for his lack of size.

“You’ve got to embrace the challenges of your position,” Fangio said Tuesday. “Everybody does, where they might be a little deficient, either from a size or a movement standpoint, and learn to work with it. And he’s done that.”

Smith, a 2023 first-round pick by the Eagles (No. 30 overall) out of Georgia, flaunted that tenacious attitude Sunday in the Eagles’ 27-13 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played his highest percentage of the defensive snaps of his career (95%, 41 snaps) and made an impact in every facet of the game.

According to Next Gen Stats, Smith generated his highest pressure rate of the year against Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson (18.2%), finishing the night with a sack and three additional pressures. Late in the second quarter, Smith brought Wilson down after defeating Steelers right tackle Broderick Jones on a bull rush, leading to Pittsburgh’s decision to settle for a field goal.

Smith also contributed to the run defense’s dominance against the Steelers rushing attack, spearheaded by Najee Harris, that managed just 56 yards. He particularly excelled at shedding his blocks. Earlier in the second quarter, Smith tossed aside the 6-7, 264-pound tight end Darnell Washington on a play that allowed C.J. Gardner-Johnson to swoop in to make a tackle on Harris for a loss of a yard.

By the end of the night, Smith had filled out just about every category on the stat sheet. In addition to his sack and three pressures, he finished the game with four tackles (No. 3 on the team), two tackles for losses (the team high), and one pass breakup.

Ever since Brandon Graham went down with a triceps tear in Week 12 against the Los Angeles Rams, Smith has shouldered a greater share of the defensive workload, going from 41% of the snaps in Weeks 1-12 to 81% in Weeks 13-15. His continued growth throughout the season, which has led to his role as an every-down edge rusher, has been evident to his defensive coordinator.

“He’s done a good job of improving each and every day,” Fangio said. “Maybe not each and every day, but each and every week. From the start of OTAs through training camp, he’s really taken it and put it on himself to improve and learn his position, learn the techniques of his position, learn the ins and outs of his position that can help him make a play or two. And as we know, he’s got good speed. He’s a good athlete. And he’s been able to amp up his physicalness to make up for his lack of size, ideal size for the position.”

At the end of the win against the Steelers, the Eagles iced the game with a 21-play, 88-yard drive that lasted 10:29. That possession was their longest by number of plays since at least 2001 and it was the longest by time since their 11:49 drive against Washington in 2018.

The possession featured the kitchen sink of situational football. The Eagles dug themselves out of a backed-up situation that started at their own 2-yard line. Then they converted on a couple of third-and-long passes to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. They salted the game away for the remaining four minutes mostly through runs (including a pair of Tush Pushes) and one key chunk play from Brown, a 19-yard reception on second-and-20, until the two-minute warning and the ensuing kneel-downs by Jalen Hurts.

Going into the drive, though, Kellen Moore said he wasn’t necessarily thinking about taking all 10:29 off the clock in one possession.

“We’re not projecting out that far,” the offensive coordinator said. “Obviously you take it circumstance by circumstance. It started with the backed-up scenario, got a few first downs, played some third-down football. As we kind of approached that midfield line, that’s where four-minute football started to present itself and obviously we had to make those adjustments. Now we’re playing the clock and all those situations.

“So I thought it was a really good job by our guys of understanding there was a lot of circumstances that kind of played out through that whole drive. Lot of situational football that kind of happens on the fly, and to have it all in one 21-play drive is very rare.”

Meanwhile in the coaches’ box, Fangio enjoyed watching the drive that kept his unit off the field.

“I had my pom-poms out and was cheering them on,” Fangio said. “Kept saying, ‘One more first down,’ and they kept getting it. It was really a great job by them.”