As they began preparing for the 2024 season, the Eagles lost both Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox to retirement.
On Thursday, their replacements — Cam Jurgens and Jalen Carter — were both named as Pro Bowlers for the first time.
There’s no doubt that Kelce and Cox are two of the greatest players in franchise history. They’re no-doubt future Eagles Hall of Famers and both have a shot to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So to lose both in one offseason was a huge blow.
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To get this level of play from their protégés is a huge feather in the cap of general manager Howie Roseman.
This is how good teams build rosters. This is the ideal model for maintaining success in the NFL.
The cool thing about the Eagles’ drafting Jurgens and Carter is that they did it before they really needed to. Jurgens was drafted two years before he became a starting center and Carter was drafted a year before he became a starting defensive tackle. That means that both of them got a chance to play with the legends they have now replaced.
So it wasn’t like Jurgens replaced some mythological legend in a Mummers costume — he replaced his buddy Kelce. And it wasn’t like Carter replaced a six-time Pro Bowler and a name in the Eagles history books — he replaced Fletch.
Both Kelce and Cox took their mentorship roles seriously in recent seasons. They saw the value in bringing along their younger counterparts. And even though they’re not in the building every day with them anymore, Jurgens and Carter know they’re still just a phone call away.
The Eagles took Jurgens in the second round of the 2022 draft out of Nebraska. The team identified him as a potential fit to be the center of the future and Kelce agreed. While Kelce has downplayed the talk of picking his replacement, the Eagles did ask him to watch centers coming out of the draft and Jurgens was the guy that most reminded Kelce of himself.
“I think I’ve been, in some ways, been trying to mentor my replacement for eight years now,” Kelce said in 2022. “You always want to try to help young guys and help the team be better moving forward. I’m smart enough to realize my time is limited and I’d like to be a part of something that (lasts longer). The only way you can last in this game is through the players and relationships that you forge as a player.”
While Jurgens basically had a redshirt season as a rookie, Kelce wasn’t ready to retire after 2022. So instead of letting Jurgens ride the bench for the entire 2023 season too, the Eagles plugged him into the starting right guard position. Not only did Jurgens give the Eagles solid play at that spot, but he also benefitted from being on the field next to his mentor.
Coming into the 2024 season, after returning to his natural spot at center, the comparisons to Kelce were unavoidable.
“It's going to be tough for him because the comparison is always going to be Kelce,” fellow Pro Bowler OL Landon Dickerson said this summer.
Jurgens on Thursday noted that he fielded a ton of questions before the season about replacing Kelce but those questions dried up once the season began.
How did he not let the pressure get to him?
“Just try to listen to my coaches, players and everybody around me in the building and not listen to the outside noise,” Jurgens said. “But at the end of the day, I’m just trying to step into my own shoes and do everything I can in my own power and not try to replace somebody and do what somebody else did. I’m just trying to do what I’m doing.”
So far, so good. In his first year as a starter, Jurgens has already picked up a Pro Bowl nod. Kelce didn’t get his first until Year 4.
The Eagles drafted Carter with the No. 9 overall pick after the Super Bowl season in 2022. The pick of Carter was slightly different than the Jurgens one because Carter plays a rotational position. He was able to play significant snaps as a rookie. But like Jurgens and Kelce, Carter got to literally play next to Cox.
During his retirement press conference in April, Cox explained how part of his legacy would be the careers of the young defensive linemen on the team.
“Oh absolutely. I think that’s part of it,” Cox said. “Because you got guys when I was young that led the way for me, guys like Trent Cole, Cullen Jenkins, Darryl Tapp. Those guys kind of showed me the way of how to be a professional and how to approach things in certain ways.”
The dynamic for Carter is definitely different than the one for Jurgens because it wasn’t 1-for-1 swap. There might have been some extra pressure on Carter to replace Cox but he said he didn’t feel it.
“We miss Fletch,” Carter said on Thursday. “But at the end of the day, we have to move in. There’s new people that come in and out every day, every week. That’s how we’ve been adjusting.”
Carter has really taken his game to a new level in 2024. While his stats are good — 4 1/2 sacks, 12 TFLs, 16 QB hits — they don’t tell the full story of how dominant he has been in 2024. Carter is a Pro Bowler in Year 2; Cox’s first nod didn’t come until Year 4.
It’s not just Jurgens and Carter either. The Eagles have consistently built their lines through the draft and have other draft picks like Landon Dickerson, Jordan Mailata, Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith and more in the trenches too.
The Eagles obviously have a star-driven team with some high-paid players that necessitate hitting on draft picks. The Eagles have done that well recently. They have been able to supplement those stars with starters on rookie deals.
That has been the case with both Jurgens and Carter. Eventually, they’ll pay these guys. And maybe in another decade or so we’ll be talking about the guys who replace them.
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