Mina Kimes reveals surprising under-the-radar Eagles player who could make a big impact in the Super Bowl
ESPN's Mina Kimes is one of the smartest football analysts out there. So when she talks, we pay attention. She gave an in-depth personal interview to GQ, but she also talked about football and about the Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl. When asked about what Eagles under-the-radar player could be impactful on Sunday, Kimes […]
ESPN's Mina Kimes is one of the smartest football analysts out there. So when she talks, we pay attention. She gave an in-depth personal interview to GQ, but she also talked about football and about the Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl.
When asked about what Eagles under-the-radar player could be impactful on Sunday, Kimes mentioned a truly under-the-radar player. He is Oren Burks, the backup off-ball linebacker who's starting since Philly lost Nakobe Dean to a season-ending knee injury in the wild card round game against the Green Bay Packers.
The reason behind the decision is because Burks also had an impactful role in last year's Super Bowl for the San Francisco 49ers and was picked apart by the Chiefs after Dre Greenlaw got hurt.
This is what Mina said:
"Okay, so for the Eagles, defensively, I’m going to go really f****** deep-cut for you. Oren Burks, who is their backup linebacker, who had to come in for Nakobe Dean. I don’t know if you remember this last year, but this Niners' linebacker hurt his ankle. It was a really horrible injury just running onto the field. Which was awful. And so this dude, Oren Burks, had to come in, and then he got picked on in the Super Bowl. Now he’s the Eagles backup linebacker, in relief as this weirdly pivotal player. And they went after him, I remember very aggressively, in the Super Bowl last year, and now he’s on the other team. So that’s a super-deep-cut player."
Performance
Oren Burks was a role player for Vic Fangio's defense this year, but he was effective when needed. In the regular season, he had an impressive 86.8 run defense grade. The 70.0 coverage grade was not as impressive and that was the area where Andy Reid took advantage last postseason, but it was also a respectable performance. He allowed a 91.9 passer rating when targeted—in the Super Bowl a year ago, Burks had a 32.1 coverage grade.
In this season's playoffs, Burks has been a big part of the Eagles' defense. The tackling has been an issue, but he had an 84.4 coverage grade against the Washington Commanders and has also been effective as an eventual pass rusher.
Burks was a third-round pick by the Packers in 2018, and was selected exactly because of his physical and athletic profile. Almost seven years later, he is back on the biggest stage. And more attentive eyes will be on him.
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