Landon Dickerson has spent the offseason on the mend from a knee injury suffered during the Eagles’ Super Bowl run
Dickerson has been notably durable during his NFL career.
A few months removed from the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade, Landon Dickerson’s prevailing memories focus on the steps that led to the speech.
The Eagles Pro Bowl left guard made the regrettable choice of losing track of his float in the parade’s early going, leaving him to walk to the Art Museum steps with the help of a few libations before making a speech at his final destination. Once he arrived, he delivered one of many profanity-laced speeches that each evoked memories of the one Jason Kelce made seven years earlier.
“It was a long day, lots of fluids,” Dickerson told The Inquirer on Thursday during a fundraising event for the Eagles Autism Foundation at Whitford Country Club in Exton. “I did walk most of Broad Street up to the Art Museum. I got off the bus, and they just left me.”
Aside from Super Bowl celebrations and participating in a handful of events with the Eagles Autism Foundation along with his wife, Brooke, Dickerson said he’s spent his offseason making a full recovery from the left knee injury that hampered him in the team’s final two playoff games and required offseason surgery.
The 26-year-old left the Eagles’ NFC championship win against the Washington Commanders after hurting his knee. Two weeks later, he played through the pain in the team’s Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Dickerson said he missed the second practice of the Eagles’ organized team activities on Wednesday because of an illness but said he’s been part of the rest of the team’s spring workouts the last few weeks. Lane Johnson and DeVonta Smith also were among the offensive starters absent from the voluntary session on Wednesday, which was open to the media.
“I’m good for [OTAs],” Dickerson said. “I actually had a little bit of an illness thing I was dealing with. But I’ve been there every day. It was just the one day that you guys showed up. … We can’t do a whole lot. We’re in helmets, skill positions do seven-on-seven stuff, but the O-line is really just running drills with [Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland] for an hour and a half.”
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Even though he entered the league with an extensive injury history and was still recovering from ACL surgery when the Eagles drafted him in 2021, Dickerson has been notably durable during his NFL career. He’s missed just two games because of injury in the last four seasons, has played through ailments a handful of times, and signed a four-year contract extension worth $84 million last offseason.
The Eagles have had a successful stretch of drafting players with injury concerns the last few years, a list that now includes first-round rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell. Similar to Dickerson, Campbell finished his final season at Alabama on the mend, something Dickerson said shouldn’t hinder him too much once Campbell returns from the shoulder injury that sidelined him for rookie minicamp and the start of OTAs.
“The difficult thing with injuries is every guy is going to handle them differently,” Dickerson said. “There are some guys that have had less things wrong than I have and have stopped playing football. It’s not a comparison, it’s just ‘This guy has had this done, so why couldn’t this guy?’ It’s how guys handle coming back off injuries, there are a lot of mental things you have to jump through more than physical.
“So I think it really comes down to the mindset of the guy. I know what Alabama is about, I know that background, and being able to talk to Jihaad, I think he’s in a great headspace right now.”
Dickerson’s speech hasn’t been the only thing that evokes memories of Kelce the last few months. The three-time Pro Bowler has been one of the most active players with the Eagles Autism Foundation this offseason and raised $50,000 at a beef and beer Thursday in partnership with West Chester Beefsteak.
The left guard is also realizing he’s slowly emerging as one of the elder statesmen in the team’s locker room.
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“It’s very weird to think about how this is Year 5,” Dickerson said. “I still kind of feel like a young guy sometimes. It’s kind of like, you start looking around the locker room, and you realize there are less and less guys that you’ve been playing with, and every year it’s just less.
“It’s sad, but it’s also exciting seeing the new guys come in and the young guys being where I was a few years ago. I think that’s where the fun comes, especially with the O-line room, seeing those young guys come in and being able to teach them NFL football.”