The Philadelphia Eagles are starting the long, hard road through the offseason by making smaller moves ahead of free agency in March and the NFL draft in April.
It’s a road made much more difficult thanks to a disheartening home loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Wild Card Round.
One position that lacks some stability moving forward is safety, where longtime starter Reed Blankenship is a free agent and star rookie Andrew Mukuba is coming off a fracture ankle that ended his season in 2025.
To that end, the Eagles have moved quickly to bring back third-year safety Andre’ Sam, who won a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2024 and rejoined the active roster late in the season and for the playoff loss to the 49ers.
“We have signed S Andre’ Sam to a Reserve/Future deal,” the Eagles announced on their official X account on Wednesday, January 14.
“The Eagles signed S Andre’ Sam to a Reserve/Future deal,” Inside the Birds reporter Andrew DiCecco wrote on X. “Sam, 26, appeared in three regular season games and was elevated for the playoff game.”
Sam has appeared in three games this season, playing 26 total snaps on special teams and three on defense.
Sam Played 7 Season for 3 Different Colleges
Once you know about Sam’s backstory, it’s hard not to root for the Iowa, Louisiana, native to find his place on an NFL roster — whether it’s with the Eagles or somewhere else.
From PennLive.com: “Sam lost his father and grandfather when he was 6 years old, and on the first day of his senior year of high school in 2016, his 23-year-old brother, Aaron Sam, was shot and killed during a home invasion in Lake Charles, Louisiana.”
Sam walked on at McNeese State, where his older brother played college football and was a star safety as well, and turned himself into a 2-time All-Southland Conference pick. After graduating from McNeese State in 2021, Sam transferred to Marshall and was an All-Sun Belt Conference pick in 2022 before he transferred to LSU for his final college season in 2023, where he had 85 tackles and led the Tigers with 3 interceptions.
In all, Sam played a staggering 7 seasons of college football; he redshirted at McNeese State in 2017, played 3 games in 2018 before receiving a medical redshirt, played in 2019, saw the season canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic then played both a shortened spring season in 2021 plus the fall season in 2021 followed by 2 seasons at Marshall and LSU.
Made Eagles as Undrafted Free Agent
Sam earned an invitation to the NFL Scouting Combine in 2024 but his 40-yard dash tie of 4.53 seconds vs. his size — 5-foot-10 and 191 pounds — kept him from being taken in the draft.
Still, Sam persisted, and caught on with the Eagles practice squad before making his NFL debut in Week 14 against the Carolina Panthers and earning a Super Bowl ring as part of the team’s practice squad.
“I started to let (my brother) live inside of me,” Sam told Penn Live and NJ Advance Media in 2024. “Like we are both in the NFL. We both play for the Eagles. We are both doing this and that. So it’s amazing.”
Eagles Bring Back Former LSU Star & Super Bowl Champion