Linebackers Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker linking back up in Las Vegas seems to be less coincidental and more by design.

The two men, who shared countless practice and game reps in Athens, Georgia, stayed tapped in with each other over the years. Dating back to as far as last fall, they likely knew they would be testing free agency following the end of their rookie contracts.

Things quickly revealed themselves following the NFL Combine, with the Raiders in need of replenishing their linebacking corps. For Nakobe Dean, he already resided in Las Vegas during the offseason. While he received comparable offers from a few other teams, coming 'home' seemed like the right thing to do.

"I prayed about it and it was a gut feeling," said Nakobe Dean after signing his contract with the Raiders. "I'm excited about the direction, and the feel and the culture that's ready to be built here."

Dean and Walker shared their potential destinations throughout the whole free agency process, as the possibility of a reunion sounding appealing to both parties.

"Honestly, man, the day of [the signings] I was texting him and talking to him the whole day," said Quay Walker, "and I kind of told him my situation and where I was headed. Five minutes later, he said the same thing, and we ended up here."

The two Georgia Bulldogs played 38 games together as college teammates, pushing each other to become draft classmates in 2022. They were two of 15 Bulldogs drafted into the NFL that season, and they'll be reuniting with former Bulldogs Eric Stokes and Brock Bowers in Las Vegas, who were also first-round picks.

While Dean and Walker spent an exponential amount of time together commanding the Bulldogs defense, they also developed a close relationship as friends. The two were roommates on road trips, with their time spent off the field directly translating over to making Georgia's defense the most stifling unit in the nation.

"The conversations that we'll have, those are some of my favorite memories of Quay," said Dean on Walker as his college teammate. "I don't know if I ever even told him but he was the one who kind of helped me implement my routine of preparing for a team on a week. We used to watch film together post-practice in college. We'd watch a game or a hour or two of film after practice almost every other day."

When Walker was asked to reflect on Dean as a college teammate, the hours of film sessions equally stood out to him.

"I took so much, he's so smart," said Walker. "Honestly just the way he work, it's kind of a competition between me and him but it doesn't bring any type of envy. Just the love that I have for him and just the way we both go about things.

"We'd go to the grab and go at UGA, we'll grab our food and go straight into the meeting room immediately and start watching film," he continued. "I would just tell him things that I see, whatever the tendencies may be from this tackle, from this guard, whether we can get run or pass, whatever the case may be I shared that with him and he would share it with me and we just click off each other like that.

While their old relationship being rekindled in Las Vegas makes for a nice story, their affinity for winning is what makes them viable.

In their three seasons as college teammates, Georgia went 34-5 and won the CFB National Championship in 2021. In Dean's four seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, they went to the Super Bowl twice – with the linebacker being on their championship winning roster in 2024 along side Thomas Booker IV.

Walker, who led the Green Bay Packers in total tackles the last four seasons, has already played in four postseason games with 16 solo tackles and two pass deflections in those outings.

The Las Vegas Raiders get the best of both worlds by signing the two linebackers, both being relatively young at 25 years old, yet still adding experience and leadership to a team trying to build a winning culture.

"It's a lot of things," said Dean on what it takes to win. "But for me, I can say taking it a day at a time to try and be 1-0 at the end of each day."

"Just because we won a lot, we know what it takes to win," said Walker. "That may be different in the league, but still if you apply yourself the right way – I think that will carry over to the league. And that's just what we can bring to an organization, to a team. Whether that's leadership, communication ... I feel like we can do all of that."