Super Bowl: Former Giant Linval Joseph bringing experience to Eagles
Linval Joseph #72 of the Philadelphia Eagles celebrates after his team's 17-16 win against the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium on November 20, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Credit: Getty Images/Andy Lyons
PHOENIX — The Eagles are a team that relies a lot on the collective experience of its core veterans to set a tone. Those who helped them win Super Bowl LII — there are only four every-down players and six total remaining — have become the core of this year’s push for a Lombardi Trophy.
But it isn’t just Eagles with rings who are part of that group.
There is a Giant, too.
Linval Joseph, the 2010 second-round pick who helped the Giants win the title in the 2011-12 season, has become a very large presence both in the locker room and on the team.
At Opening Night on Monday, he said he doesn’t remember many details about that run with the Giants because he was so young, and it really came as a surprise to just about everyone.
“It’s a blur, to be honest,” he said.
Part of the defensive lineman’s message to younger teammates is to avoid such gaps. “I just tell them to take it one day at a time,” he said. “And don’t take it for granted, because it took me 11 years to get back here.”
It wasn’t a certainty that he would be back. Joseph suffered what he called a “small tear” in a shoulder last season with the Chargers and spent the offseason rehabbing from the surgery. By the time he was ready to get back on a field, free agency had long been over and the season was well underway.
“I didn’t have too many teams calling me or bothering me,” he said.
On Nov. 16, he signed with the Eagles. The next day, the Eagles signed Ndamukong Suh. In one week, they added a combined 26 NFL seasons of experience, about a third of a ton of defensive weight and two previous Super Bowl champions.
“He’s brought a lot of experience, he’s played a lot of ball,” Eagles defensive lineman Fletcher Cox said of Joseph. “He’s been teaching Jordan [Davis, a rookie tackle] a lot, helping Jordan a lot. He has brought so much as another guy who won a Super Bowl early in his career. He’s brought that mentality into the room.”
Joseph also helps on the field . . . when he gets there. Although he has played only 10 games since he arrived and only 10 snaps in each of the postseason games last month, he’s still in the middle of the action.
When Haason Reddick knocked 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy out of the game with a strip sack in the NFC Championship Game, it was Joseph who recovered the loose ball. Because it initially was ruled an incomplete pass, Joseph could not advance the ball, but while the play was happening, he definitely was thinking scoop-and-score.
“That’s life, man,” he said of the whistle that stopped his potentially glorious run. “I was just doing my job. Loose ball, pick it up and run until they tell me it doesn’t count.
“If I can get one this week, it’d be better.”
Joseph, 34, said he doesn’t know what his future holds beyond Sunday.
“Right now I am taking it one day at a time, getting the job done, and we’ll go from there,” he said. “It’s been a great journey. I had a couple chances to get close, but to finally get back is a dream come true.”
Could he have imagined bookending his career with a Super Bowl for two NFC East rivals?
“No, no,” he laughed as only a 6-4, 330-pound man can. “But hey, it’s a great feeling.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
