How would the Eagles go on without Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox? Cam Jurgens and Jalen Carter answered with their play.

Jordan Mailata knew what Cam Jurgens was going through more than most players inside the Eagles locker room. It was only a few years ago when people wondered: How could the Eagles replace left tackle Jason Peters with a rugby player from Australia who never played college football?

Mailata and Jurgens have “chats in the back of the classroom,” Mailata said. “I told him, man, you’ve done well just creating your own shoes to fill. It’s hard.”

Multiply the number of Peters questions by the number of Taylor Swift albums to land at the pile of uncertainty facing Jurgens before the 2024 Eagles season started. Another Jason, Jason Kelce, retired and left a void. Jurgens, the replacement center the Eagles drafted and then had work as a right guard while he waited his turn, spent this past training camp getting “the same question, over and over, over and over.”

How would Jurgens replace Kelce? How could the offensive line possibly go on without its heart and soul at center?

Both Eagles lines were facing a similar reality with defensive tackle Fletcher Cox also gone to retirement. How big would the drop-off be? Would a major Eagles strength, a big advantage in the trenches on both sides, be weakened? How ready was Jalen Carter to take on a bigger role?

On Thursday, Jurgens and Carter were named to their first Pro Bowl roster.

“It’s pretty special,” Jurgens said. “It’s a huge honor to get.

“I’m not really trying to prove anything or show anything. I’m just trying to be myself and play up to my standard and get better every day, and I feel like I did a good job this year of doing that and just getting better each and every game.”

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Carter said it was hitting him more and more throughout the day. It really set in Thursday morning, when he called his mother and heard her yelling on the phone in celebration.

“This is a big moment for me,” he said. “I love it.”

Carter has been a wrecking ball up front for the top-ranked Eagles defense. He frequently draws double teams and makes the rest of the players around him look better thanks to less attention from opposing fronts. He’s still managed to break through and pressure opposing quarterbacks. He’s likely resting Sunday, along with many of the team’s starters, but will finish the regular season with 4½ sacks, down from six in his rookie season in 2023. The counting stats rarely measure a defensive tackle’s impact on a game, though.

The questions facing Carter weren’t just about stepping in and replacing Cox. Unlike Jurgens' situation, it wasn’t necessarily a one-for-one swap, given the rotation of defensive linemen. But there were questions about Carter’s fitness and whether, at 23 years old, he was ready for what the Eagles were going to ask of him. Those questions have been answered. Carter has taken on an increased workload with relative ease. Only four interior defensive linemen have more pressures this season, according to Pro Football Focus.

“It’s just the beginning,” Carter said. “I’m not perfect at anything I do right now. I still got a lot of stuff to work on and that’s just going to come with the years of experience that I gather up while I’m still here playing in the league.”

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Jurgens, meanwhile, had a different introduction to the NFL. He was a rookie in 2022 when the Eagles, behind a dominant offensive line led by Kelce, Lane Johnson, and Jordan Mailata, went all the way to the Super Bowl. He worked hard, to be sure, but he got to watch how the players in front of him went about their business, how offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland had the unit operating like a machine on autopilot.

“The path is already set,” Jurgens, 25, said. “Things have already been done. Stout’s had so many Pro Bowlers, All-Pros. I have to follow in their footsteps and just do what I think is right to get better. But at the end of the day, they already have a culture that I just have to live up to and join in on it.”

So far, so good.

Jalen Hurts was listed as a nonparticipant on Thursday’s practice report as he works through the concussion protocol. He was not seen on the field even observing during the portion of practice open to reporters. Kenny Pickett also did not practice as he deals with an injury to his ribs.

In addition to the quarterbacks, A.J. Brown (knee/rest), DeVonta Smith (wrist/rest), and Saquon Barkley (rest) did not practice. A handful of starters were resting and listed as limited practice participants.

The other Eagles with injuries were listed as full participants: Nakobe Dean (abdomen), Dallas Goedert (knee), and Bryce Huff (wrist).

The Eagles play in Week 18 against the New York Giants. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest storylines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Lincoln Financial Field.