Philadelphia Eagles Offseason Preview
Nobody likes each other or wants to be here. Other than that, things are going swell.
Part 3 of an ongoing series of offseason previews which will run over the next couple of weeks.
2025 Season in a Nutshell
It was almost exactly like 2024. Really, it was!
Remember that time Nick Sirianni brought his children to a press conference to shield him from criticism after an Eagles victory? That was October of 2024. The SUPER BOWL YEAR. The only difference in 2025 was that Saquon Barkley didn’t go ham and take the rest of the offense with him. Instead, Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense fell off a ladder in the backyard against the 49ers in the playoffs, and no one found them until spring.
Coaching Situation
Nick Sirianni. You hate him. He hates you. Heck, he hates him. No one is sure what he does. But in a January when Sean McDermott, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh all got fired or resigned after failing to meet expectations, Sirianni got off with a warning.
The Eagles’ top start-of-the-offseason priority was to hire a strong offensive coordinator with fresh ideas who could revitalize an offense that has grown too stale for French toast. Instead, they hired 33-year old Sean Mannion, who did such a fine job as quarterbacks coach for Jordan Love for two years that by December it was unclear whether Malik Willis was actually better.
Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio contemplated retirement for a few weeks in January. He only returned to the Eagles when a mid-January snowstorm hit Philly and he realized that coaching the Eagles was better than shoveling. It’s still reportedly touch and go, so please keep sending baked ziti to Fangio’s home until the spring thaw. But only if you really know how to make baked ziti. We’re playing with fire here.
Quarterback Situation
Jalen Hurts’ game has collapsed into a singularity where he either floats a 50-50 ball to A.J. Brown/DeVonta Smith or stares downfield for a few seconds, scrambles to his right and chucks the football up the sideline before tumbling out of bounds. Sometimes Hurts scrambles or runs a draw play for positive yardage, but the Eagles are flagged for holding. Sometimes he Tush Pushes, but the Eagles are flagged for a false start.
Rebooting Hurts sure sounds like a job for a dude who was backing up Geno Smith in Seattle three years ago, right? Right????
State of the Roster
Much of the Eagles offense consists of late-prime veterans who have been with the team through two Super Bowl runs: Brown, Smith, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Dallas Goedert. Barkley, who turns 29 (36 in running back years) on Monday, also belongs in this category. These players are all either fading due to age and injuries or disgruntled, which may have had almost as much to do with how disappointing the Eagles offense was in 2025 as the play calling.
The defense, on the other hand, is loaded with solid-to-excellent players who are still on their rookie NFL contracts (Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean, Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith), plus promising up-and-comers (Jalyx Hunt, Jihaad Campbell) and rent-controlled stud linebacker Zack Baun.
One of general manager Howie Roseman’s greatest challenges over the next two years, besides keeping the players/himself from killing Sirianni/each other, will be finding ways to pay the young defenders without pushing the plunger on the offense. Although that “plunger” idea must sound mighty appealing to him.
Cap and Draft Stuff
The Eagles possess $20.5 million in paper cap space, but that’s a mixed blessing. Roseman booby trapped many offensive contracts to extend the Hurts-Brown-Smith-Barkley-Johnson era, but those contracts are now so backloaded that they can neither be reconfigured to create extra cap space nor easily traded. Brown’s contract, for example, contains over $100 million in bonuses extending through the early 2030s. Roseman may have finally devised a puzzle that even he cannot solve.
Goedert is the biggest-name in-house free agent. The Eagles could find a way to pay him. Retaining a 31-year old tight end may not be the smartest way to make an aging, disappointing offense better.
The Eagles pick 23rd, 54th and 68th in the 2026 draft. They hold the Jets’ third-round pick thanks to the Haason Reddick trade, but they sent their own third-rounder to the Dolphins for Jaelan Phillips (now a free agent).
One Thing the Eagles Should Do
Draft a tackle to replace Johnson, who turns 36 in May and has been with the Eagles since the Chip Kelly era. This rookie tackle can start his career at guard, solving both a short-term and a long-term problem.
In Summary
Teams a full year removed from the Super Bowl often look and act like the Eagles: bloated in the wrong places, a little overrated, more than a little disillusioned.
Roseman likes to make bold moves to keep the Eagles in contention, but he’s now saddled with the repercussions from his last set of bold moves. Roseman could somehow trade Brown for the Brooklyn Bridge at the combine, but Fangio could also retire tomorrow. The Eagles could also stumble into 2026 with an almost identical roster and interpersonal dynamics. Whoopie!
The only sure thing is that Sirianni will be back, with a glorified intern instead of an executive officer as his offensive coordinator. That alone makes it hard to get too optimistic about the 2026 Eagles.
