Perhaps lost amidst the hoopla surrounding the Philadelphia Eagles’ impressive victory over the Cleveland Browns in Week 1 is the fact that West Chester native Carl Nassib made his NFL debut, coincidentally against the team he grew up watching, a successful one.

Nassib, a third-round pick of the Browns in last April’s draft, tallied three tackles, including a sack, from his position at defensive end.

The Malvern Prep graduate, whose brother Ryan Nassib was a star quarterback at Syracuse and is in his fourth year backing up Eli Manning with the New York Giants, was a walk-on at Penn State. Former Nittany Lions coach Bill O’Brien, now the skipper of the Houston Texans, told Nassib, in no uncertain terms, that the NFL would not be in his future.

“He came to Penn State on a mission to prove he should’ve probably been offered [a scholarship] out of high school,” Sean Spencer, PSU’s defensive line coach, said of Nassib. “He made himself a great player. He maximized the film room, maximized every repetition.”

“I always had dreams of playing in the NFL since as long as I can remember,” Nassib said. “A lot of people did not agree with that, and that never deterred me from my dream. Bill O’Brien told me what he thought, so I just kept working my hardest and never let that faze me.”

During his senior season in State College, Nassib totaled 15.5 sacks and 19.5 tackles for loss to secure 2015 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors.

The 6-foot-7, 275-pound rookie turned heads all throughout the preseason in Cleveland, and won this year’s Maurice Bassett Award, named in honor of the former Browns running back and given annually since 1985 to the team’s most outstanding rookie in training camp as voted by the local media.

If Nassib keeps making the type of plays he did Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, he’ll be poised for a long, successful career in the NFL.