‘He’s a warrior’: Cam Jurgens plays through injury in Eagles’ NFC title win, gets Jason Kelce’s seal of approval

Cam Jurgens sat hunched over at his locker stall. He winced a little when he finally rose. Back injuries are tricky, as anyone who deals with chronic pain there knows. But the Eagles center’s postgame walk on eggshells was enough visual proof that Jurgens played at far less than 100 percent.

How much then?

“Good enough percent,” Jurgens said after the Eagles trounced the Commanders, 55-23, in the NFC championship on Sunday. “But I’ll be great for the Super Bowl.”

Jurgens personified the toughness of the Eagles, specifically their offensive line. Landon Dickerson did, as well, but he didn’t finish the game he started for Jurgens, and was gone by the time the celebratory home locker room at Lincoln Financial Field opened to reporters.

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Both played center and both played through injury — Dickerson until he could no longer, and Jurgens because he said he had no choice. His team needed him.

“I was just trying for that to be my mentality. I need to be ready to go,” Jurgens said. “I got to be an emergency player. I got to be ready to go and do everything I can to be out there and be good enough.”

Under normal circumstances, Jurgens wouldn’t have been active. He hardly practiced last week and wasn’t at a good enough percent to start after a lengthy pregame warmup. But he insisted the Eagles dress him, team sources said, just in case.

Dickerson, normally at left guard, had been playing through his share of bumps, bruises, and sprains for months — a wrist here, a knee there, and who knows what else anywhere.

“These guys are playing through pain,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “I just can’t say enough about how much I respect these guys of what they have to do with their bodies. I don’t think anyone knows the half it, what they have to do to play the long season.”

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It might be hyperbolic to dramatize the physical plight of professional athletes. They’re freaks of nature. They play a kid’s sport. Casual fans just latching on to the Eagles’ run to a rematch with Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and the Chiefs might not appreciate the sacrifice of Jurgens and Dickerson.

But anyone who has given his or her heart and soul to a job well done should be able to recognize the meaning in their efforts. Jurgens’ emotion afterward spoke to what it took for him to jump in at halftime and play the final 30 minutes.

“That was really gritty of him,” Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said.

Jurgens wasn’t just a pylon out there, though. The Eagles put a second-half whipping on Washington with the run offense that once again beat a defense into submission. All told, the Eagles rushed for 229 yards. Saquon Barkley gained 118 of those yards on 15 carries as he continued to put the finishing touches on one of the greatest years ever for a running back.

Barkley, who needs only 30 yards to set the combined regular and postseason record for rushing yards, was again first to salute his blockers. The O-line is the heartbeat of the Eagles. It was in each of two previous seasons in which they reached the Super Bowl. They have immense talent and depth — take a bow, Howie Roseman — and they have an unequal in O-line coach Jeff Stoutland.

But the culture of toughness was fostered by Jurgens’ predecessor, Jason Kelce, and by right tackle-on-an-island Lane Johnson — “Tom Hanks on Cast Away,” as he described himself — the lone Eagles O-lineman to be on all three Super Bowl teams. Two years ago, the former played through a quadriceps injury, while the latter held off core muscle surgery until the postseason.

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Jurgens had Hall of Fame-bound cleats to step into this season and he must have been asked about it as many times as Kelce’s face popped up on screen since retirement. He played it down for months and went on to be voted to his first Pro Bowl.

“It’s big shoes to step into,” Jurgens said. “Whenever you go into the situation like that, and you think, ‘I need to fill this guy’s shoes, I need to be like Kelce, I need to do this,’ you’re going to fail. I don’t think anybody can succeed. I always look at it like I need to be the best person I can be. I need to fill my own shoes. I’m a damn good player and I just got to learn from my coaches, guys around me, and I just got to get better.

“I just fought all year. Stout was on my [butt]. He’s on everybody’s [butt].”

This week more than most, according to Johnson. Stoutland knew that if Jurgens couldn’t go, his unit would have two pieces out of place with Dickerson moving to center and Tyler Steen jumping in at left guard.

Dickerson was the man in the middle at Alabama, and he played 42 backup snaps there the last two seasons. But he had never snapped the ball to Hurts in a game. And while Steen played 122 of his 295 snaps at left guard this season, he had never started in a playoff game.

“We’ll be watching film and Stout brings up scenarios. He’ll go, ‘If he does this, he’s going to [expletive] you up,’” Steen said. “And you’re like, ‘OK …,’ but it’s a good thing he emphasizes it because when it happens you’re like, ‘Oh, this is what he was talking about,’ and it’s about to happen.”

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Steen helped keep defensive tackle Jonathan Allen and Washington’s pass rushers off Hurts. The quarterback was sacked twice, but that was far less than the average of six times he was dropped in the two previous playoff games.

But it was the run blocking that separated the Eagles. Left tackle Jordan Mailata sealed the edge on Barkley’s 60-yard touchdown off his first touch. He teamed up with Steen on Hurts' 9-yard score off a draw. Johnson and right guard Mekhi Becton tossed defenders on several runs.

Becton, another Stoutland reclamation project, remembered a call he received from the coach during training camp after the former first-round Jets tackle had wrestled the right guard job from Steen. Stoutland told him of the 2017 season when Halapoulivaati Vaitai stepped in for injured left tackle Jason Peters.

“He was saying how he was the reason they won that Super Bowl. And he pretty much told me, at the beginning of the year, I’ll be the reason we get there,” Becton said. “So I told him that on the field, when I gave him a hug, I was like, ‘Let’s go finish.’”

The Chiefs stand in the way. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is bound to unmercifully blitz Hurts. Dickerson left with a knee injury. His status is uncertain but his leg may have to fall off to keep him from suiting up in two weeks. Jurgens already claimed he’s a go.

But it took a “lot of heat,” Jurgens said, to get through Sunday. He lauded Tom Hunkele, Joseph O’Pella, and the Eagles training staff for getting him through “a long week.” The bizarre series of plays when the Commanders committed four penalties in a five-play span to keep the Eagles from a successful Tush Push might have felt like a week.

“I was laughing the whole time,” Becton said. “It was pretty funny. And then you see a few guys up there just screaming, ‘Come on. Let’s run the play. Come on.’ And then when we did run it, we took them in the end zone.

“It’s just a fun play to do. It hurts, but it’s fun.”

Jurgens was at the center of it all. Two years ago, he played only five special-teams snaps as the backup in Super Bowl LVII. Kelce still laments the Spagnuolo blitz that he said he failed to pick up in the fourth quarter of that eventual 38-35 loss.

Hurts handles most of the pre-snap protection calls now. Jurgens is there to assist. Maybe they get it done vs. Chiefs, who beat the Bills in the AFC championship game, this time. Kelce, who was in Kansas City on Sunday, will be rooting for his replacement, even at the expense of his brother, Travis.

He knows as well as anyone what Jurgens played through.

“Absolutely. Back [expletive] is ridiculous,” Kelce said in a text message. “He’s a warrior for going out there.”