'What I'm Doing Is Working:' Eagles' Cam Jurgens Reflects On Stepping In For a Legend

At one point, the questions stopped for Cam Jurgens.

Of course, when you replace a six-time All-Pro who might be the most popular man in Philadelphia and has a GPS programmed for Canton, it’s not like Jurgens didn’t know what was coming.    

“I feel like before the season, every day I was getting questions about what it’s like taking over for Kelce, this and that,” Jurgens said last year after being named to the Pro Bowl. “Every single day. Same question. Over and over, over and over from you guys. 

“Then the season started, and I feel like I was playing good, and I didn’t get a single question about that until just now. I feel like I did good my first year. There’s still room to improve, but I’m happy.”

Good is an understatement, something validated first by a Super Bowl LIX championship in which Jurgens played through a painful back injury that required surgery and then by a four-year, $68 million extension signed Monday, making Jurgens the second-highest paid center in the history of football.

“What I’m doing is working,” Jurgens smiled during a video conference with reporters after putting pen to paper at the NovaCare Complex. “Put your head down and work and things are gonna pan out the way they pan out.”

Jurgens is now under contract with the Eagles through 2029 after starting as a backup as a rookie in 2022, taking over right guard when he was a Pro Bowl alternate in 2023, and finally landing in the spot he was drafted for out of Nebraska for during last year’s Super Bowl-winning run.

Success hasn’t spoiled Jurgens, however.

“You worry about what you can do today and how you can get better,” Jurgens said. “It’s a long season. It’s the thing [head coach Nick] Sirianni talks about. You’re working all year long, climbing the mountain and you never want to look at the top of the mountain, you never want to look where you’ve been. 

“You only want to look where you are. Climb little by little. That resonated with me.”

Perhaps the biggest motivation of all for Juregns and his linemates is pleasing legendary taskmaster Jeff Stoutland, the Eagles’ brilliant offensive line coach.

“I can’t worry about outside perspective or what people are thinking about me,” he said. “I can only worry about what I can control and what I can do to make my O-Line coach, Jeff Stoutland, happy. 

“I’m worried about him not getting on me.”