How the inquisitive Nolan Smith grew to become the Eagles’ answer at edge rusher

Zack Baun, the Eagles’ All-Pro inside linebacker, is typically aligned in the middle of the action on the gridiron on Sundays. During the week, Baun sits in the middle of the action in Vic Fangio’s defensive meetings, too.

Nolan Smith, the second-year outside linebacker, and Jeremiah Washburn, his position coach, sit on either side of Baun in the auditorium. Baun isn’t just a fly on the wall for their interactions, he practically is the wall. As Fangio speaks, Smith peers around Baun to ask Washburn questions throughout the meeting, over and over again.

The energetic edge rusher seeks input from Washburn, especially about his pass-rush decisions. Should I go bull-slip here? Or should I have done something else? The 6-foot-2, 238-pound Smith jots his takeaways down in his notebook, then repeats the process throughout the meeting. Baun finds their exchanges enlightening about Smith’s desire to hone his craft.

“He doesn’t seem like a second-year player to me at all,” Baun said. “He’s tough, he’s physical, and he’s willing to learn.”

Smith, 24, has wanted to understand the “why” behind every action long before he became an impact starter for the Eagles in his second season, according to his mother, Chakeima Bigham. Years ago, when she would cook or bake with an 8-year-old Smith, he would pepper her with questions throughout every step. Why are you setting the temperature to 350 degrees? Why do you have to wash the meat? Why can’t we put marshmallows in the brownie batter?

That desire to learn is a key ingredient in the recipe for Smith’s success in Year 2. Since the Eagles selected the outside linebacker No. 30 overall in the 2023 draft out of Georgia, Smith has been learning what it takes to thrive in his position at his size, gradually improving through his observations of others, his focus on his body, and his own reps in practices and games.

» READ MORE: ‘Kill blocks and tackle’: How the Eagles’ Vic Fangio became one of the NFL’s most copied coaches, but stayed ahead of the curve

All recipes take time to come together. After seldom seeing the field on defense in his rookie season, Smith stepped into a starting role in the middle of 2024 due to injuries to Bryce Huff and Brandon Graham. Smith has notched six sacks in his last eight games, including two in the Eagles’ wild-card win over the Green Bay Packers. His ascent, albeit nonlinear, is a product of patience and persistence, according to his support system both inside and outside the organization.

“Food’s better on a slow cooker than a microwave,” Washburn explained. “It takes time.”

Smith arrived in Philadelphia to an edge rushers room filled with a group of established veterans, namely Graham, Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat, and Derek Barnett. The luxury of a deep corps of pass rushers gave Smith “critical” time to learn the pro game from its leaders, according to Washburn. For the first 11 games of the season, Smith never surpassed 14% of the defensive snaps in a single contest.

But Smith was never complacent, wrapped up in the false premise of a grace period that some rookies subscribe to, depth offensive lineman Brett Toth said. From the other side of the trenches in practice, Toth could tell that Smith was always hungry to improve, even when his path to a prominent role wasn’t immediately clear.

“I honestly think that’s his best trait,” Toth said. “It’s just his eagerness to get better.”

Graham possessed 14 years worth of NFL experience that Smith sought to absorb through their conversations. Not only did the veteran edge rusher provide Smith with feedback on his technique, but also he shared the lessons he learned from his own quiet start to his NFL career.

Like Smith, Graham was a first-round pick. Like Smith, Graham dealt with injury at the start of his career, although it was to a much more serious degree. Graham suffered a torn ACL in his rookie season, while Smith dealt with a shoulder injury related to the pectoral surgery he underwent four months before the combine.

Like Smith, Graham faced public scrutiny regarding his lack of production. Having been in Smith’s position in the past, Graham sought to ward off any self-doubt that might creep into the rookie’s thoughts.

“I pretty much just try to help him just be him,” Graham said. “Because it’s hard sometimes when the production don’t come, and then you’ve got to sit through and listen to all the stuff, and then you start doubting yourself, and then you start worrying and talking to other people about something that, it’s like, man, it don’t matter.

“They can say all they’re going to say. But if you go and show out and go get two sacks this week, they ain’t going to be saying nothing no more. I try to play the ‘do something about it.’ Don’t cry about it. Do something about it.”

As the year wore on, Smith earned more pass-rush opportunities and started to make an impact. From Week 12 and into the wild-card round, Smith notched seven pressures (one half sack, one hit, five hurries), according to Pro Football Focus, a substantial increase over the two he posted in Weeks 1-11 (one sack, one hit). Smith called Graham his “peace,” his constant source of encouragement as he navigated the beginning of his NFL career.

“That’s really all you want at the end of the day, is someone to believe in you and I feel like, once I felt that belief from BG and him being a leader of our room and Sweat re-affirming it and affirming it, it just helped me grow a little bit more,” Smith said. “I just said, I know I’ve got room to grow and I’ve just got to take advantage of that.”

Every player has his “Marvel Universe power” — their on-field strength — according to Washburn. As a prospect out of Georgia, Smith’s calling card was his speed off the edge. He ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash at the combine, which put him in the 99th percentile among edge rushers, according to MockDraftable.

But in order for Smith to incorporate more power in his game while still maintaining his fastball, Washburn stressed the importance of having “enough strength” as a relatively undersized pass rusher. Connor Barwin, the former Eagles defensive end who now heads up the team’s developmental program, spoke to Smith late last season about “building up his body armor” in the offseason to aid his growth as an outside linebacker.

“I thought that was a really good way to say it,” Washburn said. “So we encouraged him at the end of last season, and he really took to that in a big way.”

For a third consecutive summer, Smith returned to Proactive Sports Performance in Westlake Village, Calif., where he also completed his combine training. Ryan Capretta, the founder and CEO of Proactive, called Smith a “bundle of energy” from the moment he met him shortly after Georgia won the college football championship in 2023.

Through Smith’s mannerisms in that first meeting, from his handshake to his eye contact, Capretta could tell that he was eager to maximize his time at Proactive.

“Impression one, right when he walked through the doors was just like, dump the kitchen sink on me, because I want to learn, and I want to be the best that I can be,” Capretta said. “Initially, you don’t see that from guys always, Day 1. Sometimes you get to know them and it takes a couple weeks. But right from Day 1, you kind of know what you’re getting with Nolan.”

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Nolan Smith is ‘bigger, faster, stronger’ after powering up with Southern California offseason training

The kitchen sink included an education on the prominent NFL edge rushers who also trained at Proactive dating back to its founding in 2006. Smith wanted to know more about how Clay Matthews, Dwight Freeney, and Von Miller approached their offseason training and recovery. He wanted to know how they performed in the various exercises displayed on the digital leaderboard in the facility.

Capretta used that trio of greats as blueprints for Smith to follow every summer. Matthews, who was the first guy to show up every offseason and was present Monday through Saturday, was an example of consistency. Miller was fixated on developing single-leg explosiveness, which is especially critical for edge rushers who push off of one leg. Freeney was a technician on the bags during his position-specific drill work.

Smith’s top two goals this offseason were, one, to stay healthy, and two, to continue to develop his lower-body strength and single-leg explosiveness. In addition to performing exercises in the weight room, Smith also incorporated the use of a three-dimensional speed and power webbing system during his field workouts, which stimulated fast-twitch muscle fibers to develop functional strength. He sprinted on sand dunes, a low-impact surface, with other NFL players in their training group on “Road Trip Fridays.” He worked with Packers defensive tackle Kenny Clark and the rest of the defensive linemen to sharpen their pass-rush moves.

“He was very particular about how he wanted to approach, not just, ‘Hey, I want to put on some weight,’” Capretta said. “‘I want to gain 10 pounds, or I want to get stronger.’ It’s, ‘No, I want to do specifically this, because this is going to help me on the field.’”

From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., six days a week, Smith prioritized training and recovery in an effort to build his body armor up for a healthy and impactful second season. By the time Smith had to return to Philadelphia for training camp, Capretta found that the outside linebacker had taken strides in each facet of his athleticism.

“He truly was able to focus on every element of his body and his game,” Capretta said. “And you saw it. It all came together at the end of the summer.”

When Huff and Graham sustained injuries around the middle of the season, Washburn said he knew that Smith was ready for a bigger role based on what he had already seen in Year 2.

As the defensive coordinator Fangio always says, nothing supplements reps. Nothing supplements game time. Smith had plenty of both dispersed throughout training camp and preseason, which was by design to aid his development. With each rep that continued into the start of the season, Washburn noticed that Smith’s instincts and angles were improving, allowing him to flaunt his physical tools.

“Just learning the game and being able to play with more confidence has been his biggest growth,” Washburn said. “Where I think most young players coming into this league are tentative. They kind of feel their way through on the field. And you can see that. And their talents start to shine through the more that they play.”

The wild-card win served as a microcosm of Smith’s growth in every facet of his game this year. Smith said that his play against the run has “100 percent” been his biggest improvement in his second season. It’s also an area where the physicality that Nick Sirianni raved about is flourishing.

» READ MORE: ‘Nasty’ Nolan Smith sacks Packers’ Jordan Love twice and sets the tone for the Eagles defense in a playoff win

Early in the first quarter, Smith laid a booming hit on the pulling guard Elgton Jenkins at the point of attack on a run play. The 6-foot-5, 311-pound Jenkins left the game with a stinger. Toth, watching from the sideline, could empathize with the two-time Pro Bowl left guard. While taking reps at guard during training camp, Toth pulled across the formation and met Smith in a similarly painful scenario.

“That kind of makes you go back to the huddle twitching a little bit, because he knows how to take it on,” Toth said. “That’s that hunger and that kind of team player you want in that position, because that’s never going to be fun. A guy that outweighs you 60, 70, pounds and having to take on the point of attack, and he’ll do it. He’s not afraid of it at all.”

Smith has also been steadily diversifying his pass rushes, as evidenced by the speed-to-power move that led to his second sack of the night against the Packers. He credits Washburn for spending extra time with him on Friday afternoons, reviewing his film and offering suggestions of different rushes to try in games.

“We work on it in practice,” Smith said. “And I feel good about it. And if I don’t feel good about it, he never forces anything on me. That’s one thing about an amazing coach. Really, he just lets me be myself and go out there and play.”

For Sirianni, Smith is a product of a growth mindset. In a world obsessed with instant gratification, he said, the outside linebacker is evidence that anything worthwhile takes time to develop.

“Whenever everyone is telling you how good you are, don’t believe it,” Sirianni said. “When everyone is telling you you’re a bust, just put your head down and win and get better. I think that’s what he’s done.”

The Eagles play host to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday in the divisional round of the playoffs. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest storylines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Lincoln Financial Field.