Wrestling Cultivated Dawg Mentality For Undersized Eagles Offensive Lineman

PHILADELPHIA – You might see Willie Lampkin in Wawa during the Labor Day weekend and think he’s just a regular guy. His burly build might make you think construction worker. That’s if you even gave him more than a quick glance, because, again, he looks like just your run of the mill, blue-collar, 9-to-5 type guy.

No way you would think he’s an offensive lineman in the NFL. Maybe an offensive lineman on your local high school team would be more the first thought.

“I definitely have been underestimated because people see me and think I’m just some regular guy,” said Lampkin. “I feel like if I put the pads on, things can change.”

They change enough when the pads come on that he landed on the Eagles’ 53-man roster. They snapped up the 5-11, 290-pounder after the Rams waived him injured on Tuesday. Lampkin was signed as an undrafted free agent by L.A. this past April.

From Wrestling Mat To Meeting A Legend

Eagles interior offensive lineman Willie Lampkin | Ed Kracz/Eagls on SI

Now he’s with a team that has one of the league’s best offensive line coaches in Jeff Stoutland and Jason Kelce, a future, now retired center, at his disposal.

“He’s a legend,” said Lampkin about Kelce. “I look up to him. I used to watch his film all the time. People used to say you’re like an unathletic Jason Kelce. I can’t wait to meet him. He’s a legend.”

It’s not common for teams to add players to their roster when they are waived injured, but that tells you what general manager Howie Roseman and the Eagles’ brass think about Lampkin. They thought enough of him to waive a fifth-round pick from last year, interior offensive lineman Trevor Keegan, to make room for Lampkin, just one day after Keegan survived cutdown day.

Lampkin credits high school wrestling for helping him develop in football. He went 47-0 and won the Florida state championship as a senior at Lakeland High School. He said he likes to use underhooks when he’s taking on defensive linemen, and the sport helped him learn about leverage.

“Wrestling definitely helped me to get that dawg mentality to want to dominate every single play,” he said.

Wrestling gave him strength, balance, and good footwork. It also nearly made him quit football and just wrestle as a junior, but after transferring to Lakeland, the high school coach talked him out of it. The one-on-one battles on a wrestling mat helped him develop a nasty streak that he now applies on the football field.

“I just want to dominate,” he said. "I just wanna have my hands on the defender every play. I just wanna show my dominance. I know, even though I’m a smaller player, I just want to show I can be in this league.”

Lampkin, who is 23, moves well for a man his size, and that helps, too. He talked about his favorite move - a single-leg takedown that requires precision and speed to execute. It was a sweep single-leg takedown he used in the Florida state final to win the championship.

His left leg had a brace on it when he met with reporters on Thursday, and may require a trip to injured reserve. He said he injured it during a preseason game against the Chargers. But the Eagles seem to like what they have in Lampkin, even if you may not recognize him on the street or in a meeting room.

“He was in meetings (Thursday), so I just introduced myself,” said right guard Tyler Steen. “He’s a wide dude.”

Steen hesitated before adding, “He’s short, you know? He’s a pretty big dude. I don’t know that much information on him, but it looks like he plays football.”

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