NEW ORLEANS -- To understand how the Philadelphia Eagles became the NFC's best team, you need to recognize a critical part of their psychology of roster construction: They build in reinforcements, preparing for the possibility they could be wrong.
"The big thing for us was, We're going to be wrong a fair amount of the time. Let's minimize the impact if we're wrong," said Joe Banner, the former Eagles president who fielded daily letters from a recent Fordham Law School graduate named Howie Roseman, until he finally hired him -- with no previous NFL experience -- to help with research around the salary cap. Roseman was first named general manager in 2010 and is the architect of the NFC champions. "If you only sign one linebacker, there's a 50-50 chance you're going to be wrong. Why don't we find another linebacker, just in case?"
Which helps explain the spectacular rise of linebacker Zack Baun. A third-round pick of the Saints in 2020, Baun never found a true role on New Orleans' defense and signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Philadelphia last offseason. The Eagles also signed LB Devin White, who was expected to start beside Nakobe Dean. Instead, White was released after being inactive for the first four games of the season.
"The 'just in case' guy turned out to be the solution," Banner said.
Baun also turned out to be a Pro Bowler, one of two the Eagles signed in free agency last offseason. The other, running back Saquon Barkley, received a three-year deal that averages about $12.6 million per season. In that case, the Eagles seized on an undervalued asset, with the risk of signing a running back mitigated by the reasonableness of the contract relative to other positions and the enormous potential reward if Barkley were to stay healthy and perform as most suspected he could behind a good offensive line. Saquon, of course, delivered in a major way.
Baun and Barkley, who led the league in rushing with 2,005 yards and is the favorite to be named the league's Offensive Player of the Year, are the pillars of a wildly successful offseason of free agency and drafting for the Eagles, one that reshaped entire sections of the roster -- see: the secondary -- and helped the team rebound from 2023's second-half collapse. It was so good it made history. The Eagles are the first team in the Super Bowl era, per NFL Research, to add two non-special team starters in free agency and have them earn first-team All-Pro honors in the debut season. The only other team to come close was the 1996 Carolina Panthers, who also added two players who became first-team All-Pros in Year 1. One was edge rusher Kevin Greene, the other was kick returner Michael Bates. That team lost in the NFC Championship Game to the Green Bay Packers.
Philadelphia's hit rate last offseason went well beyond Baun and Barkley. The Eagles have had 21 different players make a start for them this season that did not appear in a game for the team in the 2023 campaign. That is the second-most by any Super Bowl team since at least 1981, according to NFL Research. The Eagles even won a game started by quarterback Kenny Pickett, who was acquired from the Steelers in a 2024 offseason trade. They signed the Jets' former first-round draft pick Mekhi Becton to a one-year contract for just $2.75 million in late April. The Eagles moved Becton from tackle to guard and turned a player widely viewed in New York as a bust into a rock-solid member of perhaps the NFL's best offensive line.
"The talent-acquisition season is longer than you think," Roseman said. "You don't have to press things in the draft."
The seeds of this were planted, oddly, at one of the Eagles' lowest moments -- the loss, two Februarys ago, to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. It led, the Eagles believe, to the team's 2023 collapse, in which they dropped five of their last six regular-season games and lost to the Buccaneers by 23 points in the Wild Card Round. That humiliation set off a furor in Philadelphia and a furious roster renovation in the NovaCare Complex. That is the scaffolding upon which this championship push was built.
"It's hard to lose a Super Bowl," Roseman said Monday during Super Bowl LIX Opening Night. "You underestimate the toll that has on your team. It's traumatic. We had a really good offseason going into the 2023 season, but we were probably on fumes. It hit us. There were some issues we were going through during that slide that we knew we had to address. I went back and looked at a bunch of games. Obviously, the defense was a key area. We wanted to upgrade our running back and continue upgrading our offensive line."
All of those boxes were checked. The starting secondary was almost entirely remade. Veteran defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who played for the Eagles in 2022, was brought back for 2024. Meanwhile, rookies Quinyon Mitchell (Philadelphia's first-round pick last April) and Cooper DeJean (Philly's second-rounder) provided instant returns: According to Next Gen Stats, both are top three in yards per target allowed among 35 cornerbacks with at least 75 targets as the nearest defender in coverage, including the playoffs. Both are also finalists for the Defensive Rookie of the Year award, and Mitchell has not allowed more than two receptions in any of his three playoff appearances. This is especially noteworthy in Philadelphia because, historically, the Eagles have gotten uneven results when drafting the cornerback position, generally considered one of the more difficult prospect pools to nail. Roseman said the Eagles didn't know they were going to take a cornerback with one of their top draft picks, let alone two of them. In the past, he said, he has gotten into trouble when he pressed to take a specific position of need. But these two selections have worked out swimmingly. In 2023, Philly's pass defense ranked 31st in the league. In 2024, it shot up to first.
There was, of course, also more that went into the Eagles' V-shaped recovery. Among the most significant moves, head coach Nick Sirianni made changes at both coordinator positions -- scrapping offensive play-caller Brian Johnson and defensive play-callers Sean Desai and Matt Patricia -- after just one season of work. It is unusual to see such a quick hook for coordinators, but the decision was of a piece with the Eagles' roster-building philosophy: They are aggressive, in both pursuing talent and in addressing mistakes.
Philadelphia struck gold with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who had long shared a mutual interest with the team, having actually served as an Eagles consultant in 2022. He inherited a unit that finished 30th in points allowed in 2023. In 2024, Philly ranked second. When Roseman first told Fangio he was considering signing Baun last offseason, Roseman projected him as a backup outside linebacker and special teams ace. Fangio watched film of Baun and thought he could play inside. The move was made, and Baun is now the rare NFL player to become a breakout star after four years largely spent as an anonymous backup.
Kellen Moore, Philadelphia's first-year offensive coordinator, leaned into the ground attack -- the team finished the regular season ranked second in rushing -- and is now the favorite to land New Orleans' head-coaching job after the Super Bowl.
There were some misses, too. White was one. Though the biggest might be Bryce Huff, whom the Eagles signed at the start of free agency to a three-year, $51.1 million deal. The edge rusher has notched just 2.5 sacks this season.
But even in a business where misses are part of the firmament, the Eagles are very good evaluators. And they are definitely not scared or subject to group think.
"Neither of us is risk averse," owner Jeffrey Lurie said of himself and Roseman.
That was especially obvious during their pursuit of Barkley. It confused many, as the Eagles hadn't traditionally spent big on running backs. Frankly, the entire league had stopped paying RBs anywhere near what other skill players were getting, deciding the injury risk and increased emphasis on the passing game had made the position fungible. But the Eagles regarded Barkley as the most physically gifted running back in the league, Lurie said. And they dreamed of what he might be able to do behind Philadelphia's formidable line.
"Sometimes the pendulum swings too much -- it felt like it was swinging too much. Where it was going with skill guys, it didn't make sense that there were also great players at other positions that weren't getting paid," Roseman said. "But more so, it was this specific player."
He continued: "I had tremendous confidence that he was an elite, elite player. When you play against a guy twice a year, you can feel in your bones what you feel about a player. Every time he touched the ball with the Giants, I was worried he was going to take it to the house. So everything he is doing is not really a surprise to me."
Teams have undergone massive roster reconstructions before with mixed results. The 1994 San Francisco 49ers did it -- they drafted Bryant Young and signed Deion Sanders and Ken Norton Jr., among others -- and won the Super Bowl. The Eagles' own "Dream Team" -- Philly faithful still cringe at that moniker bestowed by Vince Young on the 2011 squad -- did not, failing to even make the playoffs after three straight postseason appearances.
On the 2024 Eagles, eight of 11 defensive starters are different from the 2022 team, and seven of them are Philadelphia draft picks (not including Reed Blankenship, who signed with Philly as an undrafted free agent). These Eagles have already made it much further than most rebuilds. And while Baun is due to hit free agency, several of the most important moves should set the franchise up for prosperity in future seasons, too.
"Self-awareness and fearlessness and a drive to win versus self-preservation," Banner cited as keys to Philadelphia's success. "A lot of teams are slowed down, they are paralyzed by the fear of, What if we get it wrong? [These Eagles] don't hesitate to do it. If they're wrong, they trust in their batting averages."
