Eagles Announce 2018 Captains

By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Staff

Earlier today, the Philadelphia Eagles announced their team captains for the 2018 season.

"It’s an honor for them to wear the C on their jersey and to walk out on the field and take ownership in that and leadership in that." #FlyEaglesFly

More on the #Eagles 2018 team captains: https://t.co/0wMSVk2TKv pic.twitter.com/Wc4PqAPKIK

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) September 4, 2018

All five of the captains from their Super Bowl winning season are returning to the roster, but only two will be captains for the upcoming season.

Carson Wentz will get the nod for the second year in a row. There was really no question about that as Wentz is the unquestioned leader of the offense and is expected to be for decades to come. He was of course on track to win the MVP award prior to his knee injury last season.

Malcolm Jenkins returning for his second year as a captain should come at no surprise, either. Jenkins leads this defense and has been key to helping develop the glut of young talent that the Eagles now have developed in the secondary. He played four different positions for the Eagles last season in addition to all the off the field motivation and team building he provides. The Eagles recently restructured his contract and increased his cap hit for the next two seasons, showing that the Eagles expect him to be around for a while longer.

The captain of the front seven this year will be Fletcher Cox. Cox did not put up extremely flashy numbers, but that was largely due to the rotation the line uses and offensive lines often putting Cox in double coverage to stop him. It doesn’t benefit him to play like that, but it allows the rest of the defensive line more chance to succeed with only one lineman trying to stop them. Cox was also seen grabbing guys and straightening them out during the preseason. He did so with Nigel Bradham when he was arguing a lowering the head penalty called against him. Those are qualities you want to see from your leaders.

Jason Kelce will serve as the second captain for the offense. He was the best lineman on the best offensive line in football last season. He endeared himself to the fans and team alike with his speech following the Super Bowl Parade and will help lead the offense with Wentz this season.

The final captain (the captain of the special teams unit) is Kamu Grugier-Hill. Grugier-Hill had a very impressive preseason, racking up 13 tackles in the time he was on the field. He has been a catalyst in the locker room ever since the Eagles defeat of the Cowboys on November 19 last season. The Eagles were without a kicker for a large portion of the game, but Grugier-Hill filled in and even got a couple touchbacks on kickoffs. The team rallied around him and videos released after the game showed the whole locker room yelling, “Kamu” in response to his showing of the next-man-up mentality. The Eagles hope that he will be able to unite the locker room similarly this season.