Eagles' path to the Super Bowl was paved by the prowess of their offensive line

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Travis Kelce is an unusual example of an offensive star who has a keen interest in his next opponent’s offensive line.

The Kansas City Chiefs tight end won’t even be on the field at the same time as Philadelphia’s offensive front during Sunday’s Super Bowl, but it’s personal for Kelce, whose brother, Jason, was the Eagles’ center for 13 years before retiring after last season.

Kansas City’s Kelce became close with some of his brother’s former teammates and still watches their games.

“That offensive line — that’s the motor over there in Philly,” Travis Kelce said. “It’s going to be a tough job stopping them.”

Kelce has paid particular attention to Cam Jurgens, a starting guard for the Eagles in 2023 who this season moved over to fill Jason's old spot.

“He’s done an unbelievable job this year taking the bull by the horns and really being the middle piece up front,” Travis Kelce said.

The Eagles arguably have the most formidable offensive front in football.

All five starters — Jurgens, guards Landon Dickerson and Mekhi Becton, and tackles Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson — received AP All-Pro votes. Mailata and Johnson were named AP second-team All-Pro.

The group gets no small measure of credit for the success of a ground game that ranked second in the NFL this season with 179.3 yards per game and featured AP All-Pro running back and AP offensive player of the year Saquon Barkley.

Johnson has enjoyed the Eagles' emphasis on running the ball.

“For the offensive line, pass blocking is like you’re dodging punches and run blocking is we’re throwing haymakers,” Johnson said. “I love it.”

The unit’s average height is 6-foot-6 and average weight is 338 pounds.

“You can’t coach size,” Mailata said. “So, that’s part of it — DNA ... pure body length and size of arms, size of hands.”

But Mailata stressed those attributes would mean less without coaches who can “translate that on the field.”

“That can only happen if you have the player and the coach on the same page,” Mailata said.

In his meeting room, offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland likes to remind his unit that “no man is an island; you must draw your strength from others.”

“That’s the epitome of what an offensive lineman goes through,” Stoutland said. “Your job will not be done properly, or effectively, if the people next to you are not performing their job the way it’s been taught. ... You have to constantly depend on the man next to you.

“It’s important to have good talent,” Stoutland added. “But then, on top of that, there’s a mindset.”

The unit’s ability to work as one is embodied by one of its most effective plays, called either the tush push or “ brotherly shove.” The short-yardage quarterback keeper looks like a rugby scrum, although Mailata, an Australian who grew up playing rugby, says with a grin that in a scrum, “the other side usually pushes back.”

For Chiefs defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi, that’s the play that separates Philadelphia’s offensive line from all others.

“Fourth-and-1, third-and-1, third-and-2 — they’re going to get it no matter what,” Nnadi said. “It’s just a big challenge trying to stop that.”

The play preceded the arrival of first-year offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who adopted it enthusiastically.

“I just listened. I didn’t coach one bit," Moore said of that play. "It’s a tremendous play. There’s a lot of details and fundamentals going into it.”

When Jurgens moved to center, the void he left at guard was filled by Becton, who until this season was seen as a draft bust. The New York Jets selected him 11th overall in 2020, but he never met expectations as a tackle, missed the 2022 season with an injury and became a free agent after the Jets declined his fifth-year option.

Since Philadelphia signed Becton to a one-year contract, the trajectory of his career has looked a lot better.

Becton said it wasn’t just the Eagles' vision for him as a guard that elevated his game. It was also the way coaches and teammates made him feel about his worth as a person and player.

“If you get support from people that you feel like they love you and you feel like you love them back, you’re going to do a lot of things great,” Becton said. “I feel like support just goes a long way."

Intangibles like that are often mentioned by Eagles coaches when discussing the offensive line's prowess.

“It's a really fun group. It's a really cool group, just how connected they are," Moore said. "As the season progresses, you're going to have certain things you lean into as an identity.”

Letting the five guys up front pave the way has become a big part of that.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, left, talks to Landon Dickerson (69) during warm ups before the NFC Championship NFL football game against the Washington Commanders, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Eagles center Cam Jurgens (51) warms up during an NFL football practice Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in New Orleans, ahead of Super Bowl 59 against the Kansas City Chiefs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata (68) warms up during an NFL football practice Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans, ahead of Super Bowl 59 against the Kansas City Chiefs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

FILE - Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, center, and teammates run the tush push play during the NFL championship playoff football game against the Washington Commanders, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola, FIle)

Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson (65) celebrates a touchdown by quarterback Jalen Hurts during the second half of the NFC Championship NFL football game against the Washington Commanders, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton)

NEW YORK (AP) — A Columbia University student arrested and threatened with deportation for his role in campus protests against Israel gave his first public statement Tuesday, saying that his detention is indicative of “anti-Palestinian racism” demonstrated by both the Trump and Biden administrations.

In a letter dictated from a Louisiana immigration lockup and released by his attorney, the student, Mahmoud Khalil, said he is being targeted as part of a larger effort to repress Palestinian voices.

“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention," he said.

“For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.”

Khalil and the federal government have been sparring in court over the Trump administration’s move to ship him halfway across the country to the lockup in Louisiana.

The government says he could not be detained at an immigration facility near where he was originally arrested in part because of a bedbug infestation, so they sent him to Louisiana. Khalil says there was no such discussion of bedbugs and he feared he was being immediately deported.

Khalil said in a declaration filed in Manhattan federal court Monday that while he was held overnight at a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, "I did not hear anyone mention bedbugs.”

In court papers over the weekend, lawyers for the Justice Department also blamed his move on overcrowded facilities in the Northeast.

Khalil made the statement about bedbugs in an exhibit attached to court papers in which his lawyers asked that he be freed on bail while the courts decide whether his arrest violated the First Amendment.

The lawyers have also asked a judge to widen the effect of any order to stop the U.S. government from “arresting, detaining, and removing noncitizens who engage in constitutionally protected expressive activity in the United States in support of Palestinian rights or critical of Israel.”

Khalil said in court records that he was put in a van when he was taken away from the Elizabeth facility and he asked if he was being returned to FBI headquarters in Manhattan, where he was taken immediately after his arrest.

“I was told, ‘no, we are going to JFK Airport.’ I was afraid they were trying to deport me,” he recalled.

Of his time spent at the Elizabeth facility, he wrote: “I was in a waiting room with about ten other people. We slept on the ground. Even though it was cold inside the room, there were no beds, mattresses, or blankets.”

Khalil, in the letter released by his attorney on Tuesday, said “I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention – imprisonment without trial or charge – to strip Palestinians of their rights."

“For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace," he said.

In the weekend court papers, lawyers for the Justice Department gave a detailed description of Khalil's March 8 arrest and his transport from Manhattan to Elizabeth and then to Kennedy International Airport in New York the next day for his transfer to Louisiana, where he has been held since.

“Khalil could not be housed at Elizabeth Detention Facility long-term due to a bedbug issue, so he remained there until his flight to Louisiana,” the lawyers wrote. They said he was at the facility from 2:20 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. on March 9.

The lawyers have asked that legal issues be addressed by federal judges in New Jersey or Louisiana rather than New York. A Manhattan federal judge has not yet ruled on the request.

Khalil's lawyers, who oppose transferring the case, wrote in a submission Monday that the transfer to Louisiana was “predetermined and carried out for improper motives” rather than because of a bedbug infestation.

Despite the bedbug claim, the Elizabeth Detention accepted at least four individuals for detention from March 6 through last Thursday and Khalil himself saw men being processed for detention while he was there, they wrote.

Khalil, in the letter released by his attorney on Tuesday, also referenced a wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza — ending the ceasefire on Monday night — and called it a “moral imperative” to continue push for freedom for Palestinians.

“With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs,” he said. “It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”

FILE - Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is on the Columbia University campus in New York at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, file)