Army captain Brett Toth, do-it-all Eagles lineman, in line for another start at center

Brett Toth is in line to make his third start of the 2025 season on Monday, and his fifth career NFL start. The 29-year-old, do-it-all Eagles offensive lineman will again fill in for injured center Cam Jurgens in what is a key game as the Eagles make a push to earn the top seed in the NFC.

The next day, Toth was reminded — is Veterans Day.

“I feel like a piece of ... for not acknowledging that,” said Toth, an Army captain. “But I feel like in this world you get so consumed with the week-to-week.”

Toth, the son of a Navy veteran, hadn’t thought of the annual holiday until it was brought up to him on Saturday afternoon in the Eagles’ locker room. It’s not because it’s an insignificant day. The holiday celebrating military veterans “absolutely does” mean something to the guy who graduated from West Point in 2018 with a nuclear engineering degree.

His life now, he explained, just revolves around the happenings of the Eagles’ offensive line, the same way it has for most of the last seven years. Toth, who has filled in at left guard and center this season, has been on and off the active roster and practice squad probably too many times for him to keep track. He had short stints with the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers, but it’s the Eagles and the offensive line culture under Jeff Stoutland that have always brought the most out of him, he thinks.

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Toth said the Army is always with him. He sees it most in his overall team-building skills, but it shows up most when he takes reps at center, which he did as a starter in Week 8 against the New York Giants and a week earlier after Jurgens left with a knee injury in the first quarter of a game in Minnesota.

The center is a leader and communicator. It’s Toth’s responsibility to call out protections and diagnose defenses.

This week, that means breaking the huddle and first looking to see where Micah Parsons is. However, Toth warned, too much focus on that area takes away from other potential areas of concern. The Packers don’t just have Parsons for opponents to worry about. There’s also Rashan Gray and Devonte Wyatt up front. Then Quay Walker in the second level and Xavier McKinney in the third. It will be Toth’s job to make sure the line — and Jalen Hurts — are all on the same page.

“That’s the name of the game,” he said.

Toth arrived at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri in May of 2019 to lead a platoon. It was always the plan to complete his five-year military obligation after graduation, but policy changes made it possible for Toth to pursue a football career. The Eagles signed Toth during training camp that August.

The rest is sort of history.

“Mine was kind of a grandfather clause where I was a tweener,” Toth said. “What they were asking me to do was pretty much to act as an advertisement, a walking story of West Point and the military and what it can do.”

He did that in part while fulfilling his military duties, which he completed during the offseason. He spent time with Temple’s ROTC program as an instructor, doing whatever was needed to help. “Hey, there’s this guy who plays football as well but also is assigned to your training brigade,” Toth said. There was no job description. He was an extra set of hands. He helped grade papers and facilitate labs.

His official military status now is classified as inactive ready reserve, Toth said. The Toths are an Army family. Brett’s wife, Thereasa, is also a member of the Army. The couple is expecting their second child, a girl, in March.

In another world, under different policies, maybe Toth never gets to experience life in the NFL. There were times over the last six-plus years when a path to playing time looked pretty far away. Even last year, Toth did not see the field. He spent most game days wearing sweats and a headset. Between drives, he would go review plays on a tablet with the linemen who played. It was like he was a de facto assistant offensive line coach.

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Toth, who can play every position on the offensive line, said he never felt any sense of regret. “I think definitely taking this shot always has been the right decision,” he said.

The fruits are finally at least showing up on the field in 2025. Toth has been a reliable backup. He was thrown into a starting left guard spot for weeks in training camp when Landon Dickerson was injured, then backed up Dickerson after he was forced to leave games against Dallas and Denver. Now, he’s in for Jurgens.

“It’s different but it’s just challenging,” Toth said of actually playing instead of watching, rooting, and helping. “Being that kind of person where the success as a group is the most important part, sometimes when you mess up, it guts you.”

Does he feel a greater sense of pride having come this far?

“I should,” Toth said. “But no, and I feel like that’s the tough part when you’re so critical of yourself. It’s almost like the negatives outshine the positives but that’s the world we live. When you mess up on the offensive line, bad things happen.”

Toth’s season has featured ups and downs, good plays and bad plays. It’s sort of a microcosm of his NFL journey.

“You just keep digging,” he said, “and you never know what shovel full is going to lead to light.”

Jurgens is the only Eagles player listed as out for Monday’s game.

Cornerback Jakorian Bennett (pectoral), offensive lineman Willie Lampkin (knee/ankle), and linebacker Nolan Smith (triceps) are all listed as questionable, though Smith said Friday that he will play. All three players are on injured reserve and would need to be added to the 53-man roster in order to play Monday.