General

What did Super Bowl guard Landon Dickerson learn from Nick Saban?

Posted on by admin

Of the 49 Alabama alumni who have played in the Super Bowl, 15 were coached by Nick Saban while with the Crimson Tide.

Three of those 15 players have appeared in more than one Super Bowl. That number will double on Sunday, when guard Landon Dickerson, quarterback Jalen Hurts and wide receiver DeVonta Smith play in the Super Bowl for the second time as Philadelphia Eagles teammates.

The Saban-coached Alabama alumni who have played in more than one Super Bowl have been linebacker Dont’a Hightower with three and guard James Carpenter and defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson with two apiece.

RELATED: ALABAMA COULD TIE ITS SINGLE-GAME SUPER BOWL RECORD ON SUNDAY

At Alabama, Smith played with Hurts and Dickerson, although the latter two did not overlap in Tuscaloosa.

During a Super Bowl Week interview with another former Alabama player, Slade Bolden, Dickerson shared what being coached by Saban had meant to him.

“Coach Saban does a tremendous job with every guy that he coached and mentored,” Dickerson said, “not only for big games and big moments in football, but in life, too. You know what I mean? You’re going to have times, moments bigger than this where you got to be a man and step up, and I think coach did a great job of kind of getting us ready – just men — so I appreciate everything he did for us.”

Dickerson had to step up in the Eagles’ previous game. A Pro Bowl selection at left guard in each of the past three seasons, Dickerson played center in the NFC Championship Game with Cam Jurgens dealing with a back injury.

But Dickerson sustained a knee injury during Philadelphia’s 55-23 victory over the Washington Commanders on Jan. 26, and Jurgens had to finish the game at center despite his ailment.

The Eagles’ practice report for this week showed Dickerson and Jurgens as full participants on Wednesday through Friday. Neither has an injury designation for the game.

RELATED: LANDON DICKERSON WILL HAVE TO BE ‘CARTED OFF ON A STRETCHER’ TO MISS SUPER BOWL SNAPS

Dickerson said he, Jurgens and the rest of the Philadelphia offensive line will be pulling in one direction on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.

“When you’re surrounded by a lot of your friends, you’ll do more for them,” Dickerson said during his Thursday press conference. “If a good friend texts you at 2 in the morning, ‘Hey, I need a ride. My car broke down,’ you’ll get up and go get them. Maybe if one of your co-workers did that, you’re probably just going to click it and go back to sleep. Same thing with this team. It’s such a tightknit group. You’ll find when you get in these moments, these situations where you’re facing a little bit of adversity how much farther you can go just because you know the guy beside you is going to go that much harder, too. We all just kind of feed off each other.

“I don’t know if you ever go to watch horses pull, but if you put two horses side-by-side, they’ll outpull – like if you did one horse and multiplied it by two, then you put two of them side-by-side, they’ll pull significantly way more because they are fighting for each other. Weird analogy, but that’s kind of how I describe it.”

The Eagles and Chiefs will square off in Super Bowl LIX at 5:30 p.m. CST Sunday at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. FOX will televise the game.

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.