Are the Philadelphia Eagles the New Face of Dysfunction in the NFL?
Three years ago the Philadelphia Eagles were Super Bowl champions and looked as though they were hunting for more. This year the Eagles went 4-11-1 and finished last in the worst division in the NFL.
Coming off of the first Super Bowl victory in franchise history, the Eagles seemed to be one of the most intuitive, savvy and well-constructed teams in football, but when it was time to get on the field, the spark was gone.
The Eagles were continually hammered by injuries year in and year out and the roster was never able to perform to its full potential. The offensive scheme also seemed to flutter out and Carson Wentz, who was once an MVP frontrunner, fell off a cliff and had a career-worst season in 2020. Doug Pederson has since been fired, and the Eagles are projected to be 50 million dollars over the cap. The roster is old and unproductive and the contracts are large and ugly.
How did this happen?
After the Super Bowl victory, Carson Wentz was never the same. It felt as though seeing Nick Foles being immortalized in Philadelphia left Wentz in a massive shadow. The offensive coaching staff gained promotions from other teams. Offensive coordinator, Frank Reich, became the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, while John DeFilippo, the teams quarterbacks coach, became the offensive coordinator for the Vikings. This left Doug Pederson with the keys to the Ferrari. He began play-calling and had a much larger responsibility in terms of the offensive schemes and structure, which is important as we delve deeper into the progression of the Eagles’ downfall on and off the field.
Michael Bryant
Howie Roseman continually signed aging players to massive contracts, and when they were coming to an end, he reconstructed them to have fewer initial cap hits and retain their aging stars.
But what goes up, must come down.
Those contracts between players like Lane Johson, Fletcher Cox, Alshon Jeffreys and many more have all come crashing down on the Eagles salary cap in this 2021 offseason, leaving them with dead money and a bad football team.
The Eagles went into the 2020-2021 season with very high expectations, especially after a few disappointing and head-scratching ones. Philadelphia expected to dominate the NFC East and go into the playoffs with a healthy team centered around the star-studded offensive and defensive lines. In the first game of the season, they suffered a terrible loss to what was thought to be an absolutely inferior Washington Football Team, and from there the Eagles’ season snowballed. They started the season 0-2-1 and continued to spiral downward due to injuries, terrible quarterback play and awful play calling.
The injury bug continued to plague them, as they lost everyone on their offensive line except for center Jason Kelce at one point in the season. Both tight ends were out for multiple weeks, and the receivers were often banged up and unproductive when they weren’t. The defensive line suffered injuries to key players, and the linebacking core was one of the worst in the NFL. The season was lost early, and they were never able to right the ship.
In the latter half of the season, Carson Wentz was benched for rookie Jalen Hurts — the Eagles second-round pick in the 2020 Draft — as Wentz led the league in turnovers and could not seem to find his way throughout the season. Jalen Hurts came in and sparked the Eagle’s offense against the Packers. The Eagles rallied and made the game competitive late, before eventually falling short. Jalen Hurts went on to beat a strong Saints team (albeit without Drew Brees) before eventually coming back down to Earth and struggled for the remainder of the season.
The Eagles were eliminated from playoff contention in Week 16 before their second matchup against the Washington Football Team. Jalen Hurts ran for 2 touchdowns, and kept the birds in the game, although having a sub 50 percent completion rate.
Doug Pederson decided it was time to sit Jalen Hurts and start third-stringer Nate Sudfield, effectively throwing the game.
What was once an exceptional organization was tanking for a higher draft pick only three years after winning a Super Bowl.
Simply stunning.
As the season progressed and the Eagles continued to implode in an epic fashion, more and more articles seemed to leak, reporting that Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson were the reasons for such a catastrophic failure. Rumors surfaced that Doug Pederson preferred their second-round draft pick, Jalen Hurts, instead of Carson Wentz. Reports also came out that Doug Pederson lost the locker room and so much more. Amongst so much confusion there were even talks that Jalen Hurts was drafted to replace Carson Wentz, who was signed to a $130 million contract extension just the season prior. Trade rumors swelled and it was thought that the Eagles may trade their star quarterback and cut their losses in order to start Jalen Hurts and build toward the future. The Eagle’s front office became chaotic as they scrambled to point the finger and blame each other for such a devastating season.
Shortly after the season ended, reports continued to come out from “leaks” that blamed Doug Pederson and Carson Wentz entirely for this season's failure. Although they absolutely had a major hand in the Eagles' shortcomings and may have been as catastrophic to their team as reports suggest, they were not the people who assembled the team. Oddly enough, none of those leaks seemed to blame Eagles General Manager, Howie Roseman. Throughout the season there has been a feeling of dysfunction, and anonymous reports have continually come out blaming different members of the team, but it’s very curious that none of those reports pointed at the Executive Vice President and General Manager, Howie Roseman.
Roseman had himself a perfect season in 2017 and has been living off of that success ever since. He continually made poor contract decisions to keep the Super Bowl winning teams’ core together, despite their shortcomings on the field. In addition, he has been the worst drafting General Manager in the NFL. Since he took over for Chip Kelly, less than half of the Eagles draft picks remain with the team, which is nearly unheard of. It is important to note that players such as Fletcher Cox, Zach Ertz, Brandon Graham, Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson were not drafted by Roseman, but by Chip Kelly instead.
Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles owner, has seemed to have lost control of his franchise. For the first time in his tenure as owner, Lurie did not attend every game, showing his frustration with his team. Blame is being pointed every which way, and it seems he has no idea what the true issues really are. Howie Roseman has been in the Eagles organization for over twenty years, and it certainly feels that he has convinced Lurie that the problems are not his doing, leading to the somewhat unexpected firing of Pederson.
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The Eagles, in a remarkably short period of time, have become an organization with no direction, very few young stars and a salary cap that is a General Manager's worst nightmare. Doug Pederson has been fired, and so it seems Carson Wentz will remain a Philadelphia Eagle. Defensive Coordinator, Jim Schwartz has retired and Howie Roseman has been assured by Lurie that his job is safe as they look towards the future. Since Pederson's firing and the dismantling of the current coaching staff, Nick Sariani, the former Colts Offensive Coordinator, has been elected as the new head coach for the Eagles. Sariani is also bringing the Colts’ defensive back coach, Jonathan Gannon, to be the new defensive coordinator.
The dysfunction is not only on the field but has leaked downward from the front office. The Eagles have been an incredibly consistent franchise since Jeffrey Lurie took the reins as an owner over twenty-five years ago, and have since become a laughing stock. The Eagles have begun finding a new direction with a new coaching staff, but will such serious dysfunction continue to follow the Eagles, or will Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie lift the franchise back to the heights they reached only a few years ago?
That we will find out in time, but until then the Philadelphia Eagles have become the face of dysfunction in American professional sports.
