ESPN insider reveals Dallas Cowboys monitoring Eagles LB Nakobe Dean in free agency

With NFL free agency just a week away, the Dallas Cowboys front office is focused on improving a defense that ranked 30th in the league last season after allowing 377 yards per game in 2025. And for new Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker, that might mean adding a familiar name from his previous stop.

After spending the last week in Indianapolis at the NFL Combine, ESPN insider Jeremy Fowler revealed several potential targets the Cowboys could have their eyes on when free agency begins on March 9. And, based his reporting, the first name on that list appears to be Philadelphia Eagles middle linebacker Nakobe Dean.

“The Cowboys are crafting a detailed free agency plan to bolster their defense,” Fowler wrote Sunday. “The new scheme under coordinator Christian Parker needs replenishment. Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean is someone to watch as a green-dot player in the middle of the defense.”

Prior to joining the Cowboys in late January, the 35-year-old Parker spent the past two seasons as the Eagles’ defensive pass game coordinator and defensive backs coach, so the first-time defensive coordinator had plenty of first-hand knowledge of what Dean brings to a defense.

While not the biggest linebacker at 5-foot-11 and 231-pounds, Dean is a proven winner and defensive leader having been at the heart of both the Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX-champion defense and Georgia‘s 2021 unit that finished second nationally and won the first of the Bulldogs’ back-to-back College Football Playoff national championships.

Dean, who was a third-round pick out of Georgia in the 2022 NFL Draft, has 226 total tackles and 7.5 sacks in four seasons in Philadelphia, including starting 27 combined games across the past three. Of course, injuries have been an issue for Dean, who missed 12 games in 2023 with a foot injury and missed the much of the 2024 playoffs after suffering a torn patellar tendon in his left knee, which also cost him the first several games of the 2025 season.

Fowler also suggested the Cowboys will be monitoring many of the top free agent pass rushers, as well as some of the top safeties after finishing with the NFL’s worst pass defense in 2025. Fowler even named Arizona safety Jalen Thompson as another potential free agent target that “makes sense” for Dallas.

The Cowboys are working to create some serious cap room by restructuring the contracts of star quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, offensive lineman Tyler Smith to help their free agency effort, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Defensive linemen Kenny Clark, Osa Odighizuwa and Quinnen Williams are also expected to have their contracts reworked as well.