Mekhi Becton says the viral video of his tears after the Eagles win vs. Dallas ‘shows we’re actually humans’

The video the Eagles released of Mekhi Becton, overcome with emotion on the sideline during their Week 17 win over the Dallas Cowboys, a trip to the playoffs for the first time in his career sealed up, could have been left on the cutting-room floor.

Becton had the chance to make sure the footage never went public; to make sure one fewer video of his tears was consumed by the masses.

So, why did he say yes? Why did he want his raw interaction seen?

“I’m going to say something similar to what C.J. Stroud said not too long ago,” Becton said Wednesday, referring to the Houston Texans quarterback’s emotional reaction to teammate Tank Dell’s season-ending leg injury. “It just shows that we’re actually humans. We’re not just these football players that y’all go bet money on and go do [expletive] fantasy whatever and we’re messing up your [stuff]. No, we’re actually people. I just wanted to show that.”

A lot went into those tears, Becton said. For 15 years, his late grandmother has been his “why.” Crystal Minor died in 2010 from breast cancer when Becton was 10 years old. Becton’s first tattoo — praying hands and angel wings on his upper right arm that he got as a 17-year-old in Highland Springs, Va. — is a tribute to Minor. The memory of the grandmother he considered a “second mom” helped him through the lows of his injury-plagued seasons with the New York Jets.

Becton, 25, signed with the Eagles in the offseason thinking he’d be their primary swing tackle. But when Landon Dickerson was at a wedding and away from the team during a few days of minicamp workouts, offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland had an idea: Why not try Becton at guard? Soon enough, after right guard Tyler Steen missed time during camp due to injury, Becton was no longer a tackle. He was a 6-foot-7, 363-pound guard whose presence gave the Eagles one of the biggest offensive lines in football.

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He signed with the Eagles not because they were a contender, he said. He just wanted to go somewhere he could be coached well and where he could fit in with the rest of the players in the room.

Becton’s whole journey was on his face on the sideline and later, after the Dallas victory, when he walked through the Lincoln Financial Field tunnel with tears streaming down his face. More than three years ago, Becton cried on the back of a cart that carried him off the field in Carolina after a knee injury ended his second NFL season in Week 1.

These tears were different.

“I just went through so much, man,” he said. “Just my life, growing up, and my years in the NFL. It all overcame me at one time.”

For the record, Becton says he doesn’t cry often.

“It takes a lot for me to cry,” he said. “I can go through a lot and not cry, but then it can be something that’s as simple as the straw that breaks the camel’s back, it’ll be something little and then boom. It’s just one of those things I like to keep in and when I can do it and when I need to do it, I do it.”

The Eagles helped Becton find joy in football again. He is a key piece on a unit that remains one of the NFL’s best. The Eagles have three Pro Bowlers up front — Dickerson, Lane Johnson, and Cam Jurgens — and probably could have had a fourth if Jordan Mailata’s competition at tackle didn’t include Johnson and the other NFC stars.

“We’re like five peas in a pod,” Becton said. “We’re all together.”

The unit has been a big reason — perhaps the biggest reason — why Saquon Barkley became the ninth player in NFL history to cross the 2,000-yard mark. Becton, like the rest of his fellow offensive linemen, has a new custom golf cart as a thanks from Barkley, who Becton says is a great teammate.

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“He makes it all an us thing,” Becton said. “I’ve been around backs that are just all about them. He’s a real team guy, so that helps out a lot and that makes us want to go harder for him.”

Sunday, Becton will get to block for Barkley in a playoff game in front of the home crowd at Lincoln Financial Field.

The tears in Week 17 started flowing in the third quarter, Becton said. He told Dickerson and Mailata that they were coming, and his teammates told him to let them out. Dickerson told him, “We’re going to do some good [stuff] for it, baby.” They’re four wins from that.

“I love to see people overcome adversity, the situation he was in,” Johnson said. “Even coming here, he’s playing a position that he didn’t think he was going to be playing and he’s played exceptionally well for a guy that’s a 6-7, 36-inch arm tackle. He’s taken the role head-on and we were all happy for him.”

Did he know Becton was a crier?

“I didn’t,” Johnson said. “But, hell, we all started crying a little bit.”