It’s been a huge week for the city of New Orleans, for the Tulane Green Wave and its former defensive standout, Parry Nickerson.
The city hosted Super Bowl LIX and did a fantastic job. Tulane got plenty of great local and national publicity, especially as football coach Jon Sumrall was involved in plenty of the pre-game activities.
As for Nickerson? Well, he won his first Super Bowl.
Nickerson wasn’t in uniform for Sunday’s 40-22 Philadelphia Eagles victory over the Kansas City Chiefs at Caesars Superdome. He was on Philadelphia’s practice squad and was not elevated to the active roster before the game.
But he still gets a ring, his first as a professional, even though he didn’t play in the game.
The cornerback joined the Eagles earlier this season as a practice squad signing in October. Philadelphia signed him as a free agent in June and he was cut during the preseason.
But he’s been fighting to be a part of a moment like this since he started his NFL career in 2018. He’s played for seven different teams, which started after he was a sixth-round pick in 2018 by the New York Jets and he made the team coming out of training camp.
He played in all 16 games that season, starting two games. He finished the season with 21 combined tackles, 18 of which were solo, along with a tackle for loss.
Since that season with the Jets, he’s played in regular-season games with four other NFL teams. He’s played in 30 career games with 33 total tackles (28 solo) with one pass defended.
The week was not only pro football’s biggest game, but it was a homecoming for the 30-year-old New Orleans native. He played his high school football at West Jefferson High School in nearby Harvey. He played his college football at Tulane. Given his New Orleans roots, Nickerson got a lot of attention, especially during the media days earlier in the week.
Nickerson overcame a career-threatening knee injury in his freshman year at Tulane to become a mainstay of the Green Wave defense. After coming back from the injury, he started 46 of his next 48 games, during which he intercepted 16 passes and deflected 31 more passes.
In his senior season in 2017, he was a Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist who finished the season with 55 total tackles, two tackles for loss, six interceptions, and eight pass deflections as he earned all-Conference honors.
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