Tyler Steen was having a quiet conversation with a couple reporters at his locker in the back of the Eagles’ locker room Tuesday afternoon when Fred Johnson strode toward the group with a huge smile on his face.

“The champ is here! The champ is here! The champ is here!”

Johnson cracked up and Steen just stared at him with a hint of a smile.

“He took that Rocky movie seriously! No, not Rocky … CREED.”

The good-natured ribbing has been going on since Sunday, after Steen was ejected Saturday along with two Commanders after a two-point conversion with 4 ½ minutes left gave the Eagles a 29-10 lead.

“They’ve been joking about it since Sunday,” Steen said. “They thought it was funny.”

But the reality is that everybody in that locker room respects Steen for sticking up for 5-foot-11, 210-pound receiver Darius Cooper, who was getting pushed around by a group of Commanders.

“There was some stuff going on and he was getting grabbed,” Steen said. “A bunch of the (Commanders) dudes kind of huddled up, and one of them threw a punch and just kind of escalated the situation. 

“Things like that happen sometimes in football. It’s an aggressive game, dudes get a little emotional, so it just happens. It was a pretty chippy game.”

Steen said he didn’t remember anything that happened between the two-point conversion and the skirmish breaking up until he watched a video on Monday.

“I actually don’t remember any of it,” he said. “I was pretty riled up, so I really don’t recall what was going on.”

And in the moment, he wasn’t thinking about anything other than protecting his teammate. 

The Commanders were clearly angry that the Eagles went for two already up 27-10 in the final minutes. Head coach Dan Quinn said as much after the game.  

“Nobody really said anything specific, at least not that I remember,” he said. “I just remember after the play there was a lot of commotion and things escalated pretty quickly and then got out of hand.”

At one point, Steen was surrounded by half a dozen Commanders and he didn’t back down. You gotta love it.

“Emotions are high, everybody’s kind of amped up, and things like that can happen pretty quickly. They were obviously upset because we’re winning the game by a good amount. So, you know, things like that just happen.”

Steen is one of the quietest, soft-spoken guys on the team, but on the field he’s as physical as they come. In his third year with the Eagles, he’s become a tough, consistent, durable right guard.

And he showed Sunday night that he won’t back down from anybody.

Steen learned Tuesday he won’t be suspended by the NFL for his role in the brawl, but he will be fined an as-yet undetermined amount – and he will appeal. He said he’s relieved he’ll be able to make his 16th straight start – he’s only missed five snaps all year – but he also knows he can’t lose his cool like he did on Sunday.

That was the message from Nick Sirianni.

“It’s not necessarily how we want to represent ourselves on the field and you don’t want to hurt your team,” Steen said. “But we play a violent game. And so sometimes emotions kind of get the best of us.

“But we’ve got things to play for. So just make sure we stay level-headed and don’t go above that point.”

It’s a fine line between sticking up for your teammates if a brawl breaks out but also being smart and making sure you don’t get penalized or ejected.

“We never want anything like that to take place,” Sirianni said. “We want to play fast and physical and we want to be able to do that all within the rules of the game. 

“I understand that the game gets chippy at times, but we always want to make sure we’re keeping our cool in those scenarios because we need everybody and you got to play within the rules of the game.”