"You don't really see that many 6-foot-7, 320-pound people surfing out there," Eagles offensive tackle Winston Justice said about one of his off-season pursuits. "God's blessed me with balance."

He isn't riding monster waves, but they are real ones, up to 6-footers, up over his head as he crouches on a board. The sight of it tends to stop foot traffic on the beach.

"People give me that look like, 'Man, this guy's really surfing,' " Justice said.

"He'll go all day long," said Justice's brother-in-law, Evan Inatome, who taught him surfing's fine points. "He's not that strong of a swimmer, but he's kind of fearless when it comes to waves."

That part, along with the nimbleness, transfers to the football field. Justice, who took over as the starter at right tackle in place of Shawn Andrews, wasn't born with the fear gene. He used to box every day, sparring with professional heavyweights in a top Southern California gym. Top trainer Freddie Roach, who ran the gym, once told Justice he could be a pro.

Eagles fans also should know this: Justice doesn't fear you, either.

"I don't play to the Eagles fans . . .," Justice said.

Blasphemous, you say?

". . . I play to glorify God."

OK, not blasphemous. Poor choice of words there.

Justice, who turned 25 last week, said he is a different person from the one who showed up here from Southern Cal as a second-round pick in 2006. Justice was boxing every day because he was suspended from school for a year after being arrested and charged with flashing a toy pellet gun at another student in the middle of a parking-lot argument. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of exhibiting a replica firearm. That probably cost him on draft day as his stock fell.

Did that cause him to mature?

"No, uh, uh. I came back, I was still lost," Justice said. "I was still playing for myself. Sitting out a year . . . I was depressed . . . But it wasn't a turning point for me. Actually, I think it made things worse. I got drafted, came to Philadelphia. I still felt kind of lost. I met my wife [Dania]. We found Christ together, a couple of years ago. We didn't really accept him at first. After a while, we started accepting him more and more. This off-season, I really made a commitment, to glorify him in everything I do. That's why I think people see a difference.

"I used to be in the other camp - playing for money, playing for myself," Justice said. "For some players, that works. But for me, I like playing for Jesus. It might sound cliche. It might sound like he's trying to be Tim Tebow, something like that. I'm not Tim Tebow. I don't even know Tim Tebow."

Tebow, Florida's quarterback, often speaks publicly about his Christian faith and finishes talks by inviting anyone to come down and be born again.

Justice has tried to back up his own words. In 2007, he spent two weeks working at an orphanage in Jinja, Uganda. This year, he spoke at a camp for inner-city children in Arkansas.

"I let them know you don't have to be Lil' Wayne, you don't have to be an athlete, you can be a good man. You don't need to go to the club and make it rain," Justice said of throwing money at strippers. "You can be loyal to your wife. You don't have to be a gangster. I was once in that mode. I was once that man who wanted to, I don't know, make it rain, all that stuff. All that's a lie."

This off-season, Justice stayed in Philadelphia more than he had in the past, working with line coach Juan Castillo. He also took a class on entrepreneurship at Penn's Wharton School, part of a program for NFL players.

Along with fellow offensive linemen Todd Herremans and Jamaal Jackson, Justice worked out regularly with Steve Saunders, who prepares a lot of players for the NFL draft at his Power Station gym in Lancaster and also works with established NFL players.

Saunders also would meet the Eagles players at another gym in Bala Cynwyd. When they first met, Saunders said, "probably the only thing Winston said [was], 'Hey, I need to put some weight on.'

"In the past year and a half, I spent a lot of time with him," Saunders said. "I think people would be real surprised to know how motivated and dedicated Winston is. He's above average, even for the [NFL] guys I have. In the off-season, he almost took no break. That's a guy who wants to play football bad. He worked very hard to get a lot stronger."

This summer, Saunders said, "the day after a preseason game, he texted me at 1 o'clock in the morning: 'Hey, what time can I work out tomorrow?' "

It's way too early to form an opinion on Justice as a starting right tackle except to say: so far, so good. Justice said that "maybe subconsciously" he is more comfortable on the right side, his college position, when he used to block for Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. When Kevin Kolb was hit Sunday by New Orleans, it never came from Justice's side. On that early Kolb-to-DeSean Jackson 71-yard score, Fox analyst Troy Aikman immediately credited Justice for picking up a slot blitz. The Eagles also looked comfortable running behind him in the first half.

In the opener, Carolina's Julius Peppers did get past him once. Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said he put Justice in a bad spot on that play. "No, I took full responsibility," Justice said. "They call the play, you're supposed to execute it."

How it plays out from here will be another fascinating Eagles subplot.

"I almost wondered if he had too many scars to play in Philadelphia anymore," said Saunders, the strength trainer. Saunders is not shy about kidding anybody about almost anything, but he has never brought up one subject with Justice, realizing how much he'd been "flogged already."

Before this season, Justice had started once in his first three seasons, at left tackle in September 2007. Any Eagles fan remembers how Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora spent the game in the Eagles' backfield. As talkative as Justice is about his life - "Am I talking too much?" he said at one point - the curtain comes down when he is asked about effects from that game. There are no unasked questions left about it.

"I think the Giants game is behind me now," Justice said. "I can talk about this year. I don't even like to think about the past. I don't even like to think about the last game. I like to think about the future."

If the Giants game is finally receding, it will take more than two games for it to disappear. On Justice's Wikipedia page, there are three paragraphs about his professional career. Two of them are about giving up four sacks to Umenyiora, including this quote from former Eagles defensive end Hugh Douglas: "If they don't bite when they're a puppy, they won't bite when they're a grown dog. To me he's not even a football player."

As it happened, Douglas, now a TV and radio analyst opining on all things Eagles, interviewed Justice last week.

"He said things a couple of years ago maybe he shouldn't have said," Justice said. "You should write about this. The person [from the Eagles' PR department] said, 'Hugh wants to interview you. I don't even know why I'm asking you. You're going to tell me no.' I was like, 'You know what, I'll take the interview. The Christian thing to do is take the interview, not to hold a grudge.' I had some fun with it."

Think of it as another wave that Justice couldn't pass up.

"I'm happy I took it," he said.