by PHILADELPHIA – He walked to the shower after the Eagles Super Bowl victory over the Washington Commanders on Sunday like you would imagine an octogenarian – slow and thin. Painful baby steps. He gave off an odor that smelled like pain ointment, and so much of it seeped down his back that it cleared the sinuses of everyone nearby, causing their eyes to water.
Festive music echoed through the dressing room. Cam Jurgens couldn’t dance. Heck, he could barely walk. He appeared at Lincoln Financial Field and underwent a pre-game warm-up to test his ailing back, but it was believed he would be best served by sitting out the NFC Championship Game, which would be the best option to save Landon Dickerson to slide off left guard. to center and allow Tyler Steen to step in at left guard.
That lasted half a minute when Dickerson hit his knee and couldn’t continue. Jurgens enters.
“I had a feeling at the half (he should play),” he said. “I had to get warm and do whatever I had to do to be ready to go,”
Jurgens spent the week getting treatments — lots of heat, he said. He didn’t practice. The tide could have turned in Washington’s favor. That didn’t happen. Jurgens played like the 25-year-old he is and not the 80-year-old he looked like afterwards.
How?
“For this team,” Jurgens said, “Landon fights through shit. Everyone’s fighting through the shit. I think we kind of went in there to figure out what percentage I could get and how much I could do. We felt like the five that started would give us the best chance and I was ready to come in. That was our game plan today.
He didn’t want to put a percentage on what he could accomplish, just saying, “Good enough percent and I’ll be great for the Super Bowl.”
He has two weeks before playing in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.
“I told him once he got in there that I was proud of him,” right guard Mekhi Becton said. “For him to have to fight through that and not know if he would play (Sunday) or not, that’s great. We all fight for each other. We all play for each other, so it’s no surprise that he has taken such a step.”
Head coach Nick Sirianni added: “These guys are playing with pain. I just can’t say enough about how much I respect these guys and what they do with their bodies. I don’t think anyone knows the half of what they have to do to play the long season.
“…All these guys are fighting the pain. I know coaches struggle with sleep deprivation. We don’t care. We just want to keep going.”
Jurgens obviously had to fight through a season in which he had to replace Jason Kelce. He did well enough to earn a spot in the Pro Bowl, which he will now no longer play in because he could help the Eagles get back to the Super Bowl. He was a rookie when they went two years ago, and a reserve at the time.
“I’m so grateful to be here in this city and to be called up to this team,” he said. “I couldn’t be in a better place. I couldn’t have been put in a better situation, learning from Kelce, learning from this O-line, Stout (offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland). This city is great. That stadium was incredible (Sunday). It’s been great all year. This team just has so much fight, so much courage. Nobody blinks. They just go out there and fight.”
Steen added: “Cam is a fighter for that because I know Cam was definitely struggling through that injury for a while. If he has to step in when an injury goes away, he’s nowhere near 100 percent, that’s huge because he so strong to finish the game for us. That was big.”
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