PHILADELPHIA — Prior to this season, Eagles tight end Cameron Latu’s NFL career was heading in the wrong direction.

Consecutive meniscus tears, self-doubt and immaturity prevented him from reaching his potential.

Now more confident and dedicated, Latu has turned it around with the Eagles, thriving as a quasi-fullback and core special teamer.

“It’s all in your mind,” Latu told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday. “If you don’t believe in yourself, if you’re not prepared before the week and know what you have to do, you’re not going to be comfortable out there. You’re not going to let your actual talents take over. You’re just going to move slow.”

Before signing a reserve/future contract with Philadelphia last January, Latu was on the verge of being out of the league.

Latu, a 2023 third-round pick, was waived after his first season with the San Francisco 49ers. He didn’t play a single game in his first two years, spending most of 2024 on the Cleveland Browns’ practice squad.

Entering Philadelphia’s training camp this past summer as a roster long shot, he has come out of nowhere to help the Eagles establish their run game with physical blocking, which could be the key to the offense finding success in the playoffs next month. Meanwhile, the team helped Latu discover his best NFL position, potentially opening the door to a long and fruitful career.

“I could do everything in my eyes,” Latu said. “ I believe in my ability to do everything the tight end can do and more so. But right now, whatever my role is, I’m gonna do that to the best of my ability to help the team as much as I can. Right now, I love special teams. I love my role on offense. I don’t care if I have more or less. Whatever I do to help the team, I’m good.”

During Latu’s final two seasons at Alabama in 2021 and 2022, he became one of the top tight ends in the country, recording 56 catches for 587 yards and 12 touchdowns during that span.

After joining the 49ers, he quickly learned that succeeding in the NFL takes far more than college, and at first, he was just content with being on a roster — a mindset that held him back.

“My mentality,” Latu said about his biggest issue during his first two seasons. “I did get a little comfortable in terms of just thinking I made it.”

After getting off to a slow start during his first training camp with San Francisco, Latu’s situation took a turn for the worse when he suffered a season-ending meniscus injury. He then tore his other meniscus during rehab.

“When I had to be sidelined, it kind of threw my mind into like, ‘Okay, you’re chilling this year, you’re redshirting, just get healthy.’ But obviously when I got cleared the next year during camp and I wasn’t where I wanted to be, [that was hard].”

Post-injury, Latu no longer fit into San Francisco’s plans. He said that “getting cut” was one of the hardest moments of his life, but it also made him look in the mirror.

“I had to grow up, and I had to be a man,” Latu said. “I had to realize that if you’re not working and getting better every day, then you’re getting worse. You have to live this lifestyle. When you wake up, you think about football. This is our job. This is not my hobby. When I wake up and go to sleep, my mind is on football. If it’s not like that, if it’s somewhere else, you have distraction, especially in season, then you’re not going to get where you want to be.”

Latu said he regained his strength and speed last year by lifting and running every day, and with the Eagles this past offseason, he became even faster and stronger.

“I don’t even think my best is seen yet within myself,” Latu said. “Right now, I’m looking at the tape, and I feel like I’m doing good. But I just want to keep getting better every game, one step at a time, like a tweak here and there.”

No matter where Latu is lined up on the field — whether on special teams, where he has 10 tackles, or as a blocker on offense — he enjoys the physical side of the game, saying he loves to put “my face on somebody.”

Latu is just glad to still be playing in the NFL after a difficult two-year period. Those tough lessons forged the player he is today.

“My biggest challenge was me,” Latu said. “I was in my own way, and I just had to live and learn. I kept on believing in myself, kept on just working one day at a time and focused on building my own legacy.”