PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Emergency pod: Eagles sign Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens to 4-year contract extension through 2029

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

The Eagles signed Cam Jurgens to a four-year contract extension worth $68 million. Jason Kelce's replacement is now under contract through the next five seasons. Jurgens' new  deal makes him the second-highest paid center in the NFL. Zach Berman and Fran Duffy react to the news in an emergency episode of the PHLY Eagles Podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Breaking news. Cam Juergens signs a four-year contract extension with the Eagles. He's now under contract through 2029, second highest-paid center in the league. Four years, $68 million. Big news for the Eagles. We're here to discuss it. Zach Berman, Fran Duffy, Fran. You're loaded up with draft work.

A few years ago, you're doing your draft prep on Cam Jurgens. Now he's a cornerstone player for the Eagles. Your reaction when you saw this news. Yeah, I mean, not. entirely surprising, right? We all expected that this deal would get done. It was just a matter of when, right? I think when you're looking at Juergens, what he did last year, his first year as a starter in place of Jason Kelsey. It's a deal that's warranted. He did an outstanding job in the pre-snap phase. Look at him in the past game. I thought he did a really nice job over the course of his first

season as a starter inside. And then in the run game continued to be that weapon out in front for Jeff Stalland and that run scheme and just how he was used as a puller. What he did at the second level and a lot of their zone scheme. So some really good stuff on film from Juergens. And honestly, a lot of reason to expect that he's only going to continue to ascend here in year two as a starter at that spot. Yeah, you said it well. By the way, this is the P.H.L.Y. Eagle Show.

You should be knowing that, or I guess you should know that by now, you're watching the emergency show with the excitement at the top. Didn't get to the name of the show. And it's important to note here, this is a part of the Eagles plan, right? and they like the sign guys. They're always quick to the market. They've done this in the past with players that they draft. We're core players here.

It's a four-year deal, but he's under contract for five years. And for those who kind of don't know the background of this, he's on the last year of his rookie deal. So they're able to add those four years on and spread the new money out over five years. It's a benefit that the Eagles do. It's why they act quickly. The market's not going up. Second behind Creed Humphrey here.

But as you said, Fran, he really showed in his first year as Jason Kelsey's replacement that he is that guy at the pivot for the Eagles. That he's a big piece here. And when you look at it in terms of the big picture for the Eagles, Jordan Milata signed long term, right? Six highest paid left tackle in the league. Landon Dickerson signed long term. Highest paid left guard in the league. Lane Johnson signed long term. One of the highest paid right tackles in the league.

These four guys here, this is the core of the Eagles offensive line. It's backing up through their actions, their philosophy of building along the lines of scrimmage. Yeah, and that's why this was not all that surprising, right? Again, it goes back to like it was a matter of when. And I think when you look at Juergens, he has just matched what the expectations were both on and off the field when they took him in the second round of the draft a few years back. And so to be able to get out in front of this, like you said, that fits the M.O. of Howie Roseman and of the Eagles to make sure you try and beat the rest of the teams.

They're going to start to pay some of these other young centers. We know that salary cap is going to rise. A lot of these numbers are going to be right. So we saw it with the guard market a year ago. My guess is we'll see the center market here in the next couple of seasons start to rise as well. You know, Creed Humphrey, the NFL's highest paid center. I believe this deal will put Juergens just beyond that. So I think when you're looking at, you know, what the impact he has on the field,

I mean, again, I think it's warranted. It was a big, it was a question mark coming into the season. You know, what is he going to look like stepping in for a future Hall of Famer with Jason Kelsey? You know, my, to me, when I watched it coming in, it was all right, well, I expect from an ability standpoint, he's going to come in and he's going to be able to handle everything that the Eagles had done with Kelsey in the past. And it was going to be more about the question of, you know, just all the mental things of the all the time on task that Kelsey had accrued over the course of his career. You know, you're going to have, you're going to have, you're going to have some kind of, you're going to have some kind of, have a drop off. But to me, you know, watching Juergens, yes, there was certainly a drop off,

but not to an extent that it's certainly limited this offense in any way. And so did he show enough in one year there that that day, that he should be the second highest fate center? And then what's like the next step in his game at this point? Yeah, I think it's just going to continue to be, because Jalen Hertz, he handled a lot of that, that pre-snap responsibility last year. It'll be interesting to see like, all right, well, does that continue here moving forward? Do you want to give that back? to the center position in Cam Jergens. My guess is no. My guess is that he will continue to kind of hold that down, Jalen. But at the end of the day, you know, when you're looking at where

are ways that Jurgens can get better, it's more a matter of consistency. He was he was able to get bullied at times in past protection, you know, in the run game, just being able to deal with some of those bigger nose tackles. A lot of the same issues that Jason Kelsey faced early on in his career, going up against a guy like Dexter Lawrence twice a season. You know, you start to get a little bit better in some of those areas. And so, you know, my expectation would be that Jalen, or that, that Cam Juergens will continue to get a little bit better. Improvement's not linear. Progression's not linear. So there's going to be continued ups and downs whenever you have a player going into just his third year as a starter. But, you know, to be able to, again, get out

in front of, say, the Tyler Lindelbaum deal. You look at Steve Avila would be a player. That's a young player, ascending player. John Michael Schmitz, you know, from the New York Giants, I respect in a couple of years, he's going to be a little. on that market. Graham Barton from Tampa Bay, if all signs moving forward to him. These are high-paid centers, guys that were taken in the first and second round that have gotten off to good starts in their career.

That center market's going to continue to rise. And so the Eagles, you know, just want to make sure that you're staying out in front of these things. Now, this is happening on the first day of the off-season programs so the players are in the building. So Cam can literally put ink on the paper this week. But this is draft week. And so we should look at this in the context of the draft.

This doesn't affect the Eagles draft plans. they weren't going to take a center to replace Cam Juergens or anything like that. But there's two things to look at here that I want to throw off you. First, and I've always said this, when you're assessing the Eagles drive plans, don't look at their roster this year. Look at what it's going to be next year and the year beyond that. That's the way Howie Roseman tends to think of it. They try to get ahead.

That was the Cam Juergens pick. And then the second thing, the second takeaway here, is that when you have four players signed the top of the league contracts on the offensive line, chances are that fifth spot, you're probably looking at a player on a rookie deal. They have that now with Kenyon Green. They have that now with Tyler Steen, but neither player, you know, is going to be here a long term. So, I guess, how does the Eagles draft plans? What can you read from this from this contract?

And what do you see at right guard? And is there anything they can do Thursday, Friday, Saturday to address right guard? Yeah, absolutely. I think when you're looking at this guard class, you know, if you just look at out, like, who are just the pure guards and guard only, then you might feel a certain kind of way. But if you look at the players that do have that position versatility, which is something we know that the Eagles covet along the offensive line,

guys that can play multiple positions. You know, we saw that with Landon Dickerson, who was a center for his last couple of years in college, but had played all five positions along the offensive front. I think when you're looking at what the Eagles could do at right guard, my guess is it would be somebody that does have that ability to be flexible. You know, you would never say never if a guy like Tyler Booker, the guard from Alabama, who is viewed as a guard only,

moving in the NFL, you know, that might be, you know, too good of a proposition to pass up. But otherwise, I would say you're looking at players that do have that ability to basically plug it where it leaks. If there's an injury mid-week where a guy has to step in, if there's an injury mid-game where, all right, now we can slide chairs here and there to make things work. I think that that's probably the path that they would go. We've talked about it. We did our offensive line previews in the last several days here on the show. And so there are a lot of names that I think that can fit that bill for this franchise. And then as far as some of the long-term needs, we don't know what defensive

tackle is going to look like beyond next season, because Jordan Davis is entering the final year of his deal unless they pick up the fifth year option. We don't know what linebackers going like. Nikobie Dean's entering the last year of his deal. Safety, re-blanketships entering the last year of his deal. Obviously, the Eagles are uncertain next to him. So there's a, there's a handful of spots here where the Eagles might not just be thinking what it looks like in 2025, but also what it looks like in 2026 and beyond. We're tight on time here, but Fran and I, we're We'll be back at 2 o'clock on the PHLY Eagles show. We're going to have Coach Flynn.

We'll be breaking down the wide receivers. We'll have more coverage of Cam Juergens on all phly.com. We have a diehard special running now $36 for a full year. Make sure you check that out. Until 2 o'clock, that's Fran. I'm Zach. Thanks for the quick production, Julia. We'll be back then.

Thanks for watching.