When you listen to Landon Dickerson speak, how can you not be impressed?

The Eagles’ second round draft pick is 22 years old but has a delivery and vocabulary that likely hits somewhere in the 95th percentile of his age group.

He spoke to reporters after the draft, and then went on Angelo’s show this morning, using the word “fruition” in one of his answers, which the average Boyertown resident might have to Google.* He explained how he got a master’s degree in business administration and made his way from Florida State to Alabama via transfer.

On the topic of his ACL tears and the ankle injury, he said this about staying healthy:

“I feel good about how I take care of myself moving forward. I know what I need to do lifting-wise, diet-wise, rehab-wise, to keep my body feeling good throughout the season. Football is a weird sport. Things happen that you can’t control. But from my end, I feel like I’m taking the necessary steps to take care of my body.”

The interesting thing about Dickerson is that he did end up starting more than 35 games in college, despite suffering those myriad injuries. He fully recovered from the first ACL tear and played 20+ games over two seasons with Alabama. He made it almost through the entirety of this season before the second ACL tear, so even though the injury history is concerning, he did produce a lot of volume over the course of his college career.

“It’s not necessarily frustrating,” Dickerson said about the injuries. “Injuries are a learning experience, really, in my opinion. I don’t sit back and think that I could have done this differently, or that. They’re in the past and you can’t change that. My mindset is to learn from it and move on, see what we can do next time. For me, it sounds bad, but I’m kind of thankful for them, because these injuries have taught me a lot about who I am as a player, mentally and physically about what I have to do to take care of my body.”

Decent point. Injuries do present ton of adversity. Big hurdles to clear. The fact that he’s been through the wringer could be looked at in a positive way, as he suggests.

It’s a good interview. Listen to the full thing here:

*I’m from Boyertown so I’m allowed to do the self-deprecating Berks County jokes