How Jaylen Carter, Cam Jurgens Replaced Eagles Legends Fletcher Cox, Jason Kelce

Heading into the 2024 NFL regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles had to trade two of the best players in franchise history: Fletcher Coke and Jason Kelce.

Drafted in the early 2010s, with Cox coming off the board in the 2012 first round and Kelce becoming a 2021 sixth-round draft pick, the dynamic duo helped sustain more than a decade of excellence in Philly’s trenches, with ideas of swapping the duo in the same season is terrifying perspective by any measurable metric.

And yet, with the NFC Championship game fast approaching, the Eagles barely missed a double, with Jalen Carter and Cam Jurgens becoming two of the best players at their positions in their first years as full-time starters.

Need proof? Well, look no further than Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni, who before Week 21 broke down how effortless Carter and Jurgens are stepped into the two largest sets of shoes on Philadelphia’s 2024 depth chart.

“Jalen Carter is playing good football. Excited to continue his recovery. I talked a lot about him and his development and all that stuff. Obviously the talent is there, but he’s developed so much as far as everything, his instincts, and he just keeps getting better. “He has great football instincts,” Siriani told reporters.

“To have two phenomenal defensive tackles back to back, that says a lot.” Same thing with (former Eagles C) Jason (Kelce) to (C) Cam (Jurgens). It’s the same kind of work. So obviously you miss those guys. I miss being around Jason every day. I miss being around (former Eagles DT Fletcher Cok) Fletch every day. But these two guys are playing really good football. Excited about their journey and further development.”

For Carter, the transition from playing alongside Cox to becoming a three-technique rusher on nearly every down has been borderline effortless, with Georgia Pro Bowler and All-Pro pride the centerpiece of Vic Fangi’s defense. While he still hasn’t recorded double-digit sacks, picking up just 4.5 during the regular season plus two more in the playoffs, Carter has drawn gravity that’s simply impossible for a blocker to stop, which is incredible, considering he projects to average 84 percent of Philly’s defensive snaps.

And as for Jurgens? Well, while he doesn’t have the magnetic draw that earned Kelce everything from multiple ESPN television gigs to cereal boxes and a small army of other endorsements, his play on the court looked remarkably similar to the player he replaced. Like Kelce, Jurgens is a beast in the open, where he turns into a linebacker in open space, and his ability to force his teammates into proper blocking schemes was paramount to Saquon Barkley’s 2,000-yard rushing season.

Throw it all together and what do you have? The absolutely incredible streak of drafting Howie Roseman, who figured out a way to trade two all-time greats without his team missing a beat.