The Eagles Had a Fast Rebuild Before—and They Can Do It Again

All right, let's jump into the rest of the slate here. And the first one that I want to talk about and dive a little bit deeper on is the Carolina Panthers beating the Eagles 25 to 14. The Eagles are now losers of four straight. The Carolina Panthers are three and two. We're going to have a substantive discussion here in a second about life after Jalen Hurts that happened between our last two pods. And I want to get into it, but very quickly, the Panthers, you know, we talk a lot about the Bryce Young progress the fact that you know Chuba Hubbard is still uh such a steady Eddie for this team um and Jalen Coker back taking this offense in a great direction Ejiro Evero man deserves a lot of credit for the success this season and this is in i know i'm sounding like a broken record on this one because i've pegged Ejiro as a future head coach for the last three or four years you can see it you can go back and look at what i've written over time and especially the last two years when the Panthers flirted with historically bad defenses everyone's like what's happening to your boy what's happening to your boy he's got players now right like i mean they went out and they got good players and uh you know the creativity putting their off-ball linebackers like Lloyd was basically playing an edge in this one the blitz packages in this game were superb yes again it was against Tanner McKee who's probably a little bit easier to throw off his spot and bother them i would venture to say that that score would have been very similar if uh if Jalen Hurts was on the field i i think this team is set up well and i'm feeling better about my Panthers winning the uh NFC South pick especially after this weekend yeah and i love the way they finished the game you know like it was they had kind of controlled it the eagles are able to come up in the fourth quarter and cut the lead and you know they go on a on on a on a long drive so now it's 1914 and we'll see what you got and they're able to force a three and out you know then they drive for a touchdown of their own then they come back and they they they they force a turnover on downs and then with like a little under five minutes left they do what i think is a mark of a really good team which is they don't give the ball back you know they're able to grind out three first downs and get into victory formation and you know that's that's one thing i know a lot of these teams especially ones that are built the way the panthers are take pride in is like can we run the ball when they know they're when they know we're running it and the panthers were able to do that behind chuba hubbard who um has become a really good back for them you know has really grown and and and become the kind of guy that you can feature in an offense and so i i'm really encouraged with where bryce young is and you know there's a calmness about the way he plays that i think when you've seen him at his best shows up and you know like where it looks he looks so unbothered especially for a guy of his size looks so unbothered in the pocket and so comfortable in the pocket um you know Tetairoa McMillan i think is is gonna be a star coker's a great compliment to him uh they have a lot of things going man like they they deserve our respect they are i mean to this point right clearly the best team in the NFC South a year after winning it yeah i mean i don't i don't really see another option i think the Falcons and we can get into that too we're we're and again we want to avoid i still think the Panthers are better though and the Panthers are better than the Falcons and they beat the crap out of them on the field which like there's a there's an asterisk next to that because they didn't have Panthers but still right but i think and i think that there's kind of a something that really concern me about the Falcons and we'll get to that in a second but the Eagles albert um uh you know a couple things first off they're in a free fall will they trade Saquon Barkley to the Texans come on baby make it happen make it happen the Texans were in on Saquon the last time that Saquon was available they wanted Saquon and then that's when they ended up with Joe Mixon uh does Nick Haley uh or does uh Nick Caserio come back around i mean so here's the thing so i i think what's interesting about the Eagles is like we've talked a lot about their cap situation we can dive into that right yes the way around it is that you keep drafting and developing i think the Eagles deserve a ton of credit they draft well they develop better like they develop their player development system is unbelievable and has done such a great job i think Jordan Mailata is probably the shining example of it but across the board they've done an unbelievable job developing young talent so they've earned our trust that said they had i think it was six of the seven starters on offense on rookie on rookie contracts yesterday and a seventh Damian Pierce was like a scrap heap guy who's basically was essentially playing on the minimum you know yeah that's seven of your 11 starters on offense and that's where they're at and it's a bunch of guys i mean outside of Makai Lemon it's a bunch of guys who are drafted outside of the first two rounds you know so as good as you are at that like you're going to feel that a little bit you know and so um you know the defense i think has had kind of had to kind of bear the brunt of it and has had to carry the team and it's been on them to do that and i i i think we're getting close to the point for for the eagles where you start to look at it and you say is this 2020 again you know what i mean like where it's like we're going to assess a bunch of things and if we sink to the bottom of the league and wound up wind up with a high draft pick so be it if we rig it a little bit to get an even better draft pick at the end maybe that's worth considering yeah um but but but if you remember like 2020 like that that was the year they kind of all right like we got to look at everything and then they went into 21 and the reason they crashed in 21 the reason like their their cap situation was where it was in 21 is because like the the covid the covid situation you know so they went through the stretch where they had to get a lot younger and that was right when Sirianni was coming in and i think it's at least worth considering again rebuilding is a dirty word in philly and i know WIP isn't gonna stand for it if they're like you know four and eight you know in in in november right like get it understand it all that but you know like it is i think it is worth considering whether or not this is the right time to get younger in a bunch of different places and uh you know again the the Eagles have a proven track record that they can they can pull that kind of turnaround off well that's the thing like i don't know if it takes patience if i'm a fan that's almost exciting to me because you're turning over a new leaf you have a successful GM and you have an owner who's willing to pay uh to get the job done so what are you worried about you know and and i think what drives me nuts is like only one team was able to hold on to it kind of for a long time and they had literally the greatest player in NFL history yeah and they played that's what propped them up though like that did prop that that's what prevented the read that's what made like the subtle rebuilds 10 win years you know and they also played in a clown car of a division which i guess the Eagles do right now which is a fair um you know but the but the Bills and the Jets and the Dolphins were so perpetually bad and they kept tripping over themselves to make themselves Patriots proof when in reality they just kept sacrificing long-term gains for short these perceived short-term wins and just making the rosters worse so that is a situation that happens in a vacuum a weird outlier that will probably never happen again in in the history i mean like the yeah the Patriots essentially destabilized the other three teams in their division by creating a scenario where there was no access to winning the division, which meant the only path to the playoffs was getting a wild card. And that's a tough road to hoe. You know, if there's no way to do what Carolina did last year, right? Which is like eke out a division title to buy yourself more time. It's a tough place to be. And so the Eagles, okay, you win the franchise's first ever championship. Then you quick rebuild on the fly, change head coaches, make another Super Bowl, then win the franchise's second championship, in a matter of what seven years six years it's over and that's okay you know and and I get it that the performative nature of calling into a talk radio show and being like fire everybody like shut up it's it's over and that's okay right Jalen Hurts is going to be out for the rest of the season this is a great chance to see I mean Vic Fangio's probably gone probably gone you know So, I mean, this is a chance to see who you can build around for the future. And as a fan, I'm sorry that there's a cost to this. There's a cost to Super Bowls. Like, you don't just get to go every single year. Like, it's insane to me that you would think that way. And so, yes, now is the cost. Now you got to watch a few games of Tanner McKee at quarterback. Now you got to watch, you know, your offensive line turn over. You had the greatest offensive line possibly in modern NFL history. So now you've got to watch some bad offensive line play. And it's not about they'll call and be like, oh, this is Stoutland. Well, if we just had Jeff Stoutland. Jeff Stoutland's great. This has nothing to do with the totality of the rebuild that the Eagles are facing financially, schematically, emotionally, all that. Sometimes you've just got to let it happen. I think in some ways I am blessed to be an Orioles fan where every season is a massive letdown, or a Notre Dame fan for that matter. because they haven't won one since the year I've been born. I can at least deal with this. I don't know what I would be like if one of my teams was actually successful. But, like, yes, this has got to happen. I'm not even going to listen to WIP. You want me to let you know? Yeah, I'm sure it's insane. You want me to tell you how, like, 35-point wins is a disappointment? Crazy. Oh, because we didn't establish the run in this one because Jalen Hurts threw for 500 yards. It's like, stop, stop. I can relate with it. But honestly, it does – what's getting them here is what gets everybody, which is age and injuries and all that, right? Like they drafted Landon Dickerson in the second round. Why did they get him in the second round? Because he was a medical issue. He had medical issues. And you know what? Like those things generally catch up with guys. So now Landon Dickerson might be broken as a player. No affront to him. But he came in like with – what was it? Two ACLs. I mean, it was just – it was really tough what he went through in college. And so there were medical questions and they've gotten, what is it, five, six great years out of him. And now maybe that's caught up with him. You know, they, they took the opportunity to trade Cam Jurgens, Lane Johnson. They got almost 14 seasons out of him. Right. Jason Kelsey got old, but Fletcher Cox got old and retired. Brandon Graham is now gone. Like, you know, you look at the infrastructure for these teams and this was, this is what happens to everyone. I think the upshot of it is you at least have some pieces that you can work with. Jordan Mailata as long as he wants to play like i think he probably still has runway because big men can last in the NFL Trent Williams is a great example of it right you have you have a first round receiver on your team now and Makai Lemon you can develop you've got Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell in your secondary you have Jalen Carter as a centerpiece of your defensive line and Jordan Davis right next to him so you have like pieces but i think now the idea is how do we get young around those pieces and those those pieces hopefully can make us competitive in the interim the bigger question of course is whether the quarterback can and that's i think you know going into 2027 when for the first time the majority of his his his money and only a much smaller percentage of his money now next year is guaranteed than has been guaranteed over the last few years maybe that's where you start to ask some of the big picture questions especially if he comes looking for a contract revision right um you know and and and and that's a that's a bridge you cross when you get to it obviously right now he's got bigger issues that he's dealing with but um yeah man like i i think this is there's a lot of big picture questions to ask with the Eagles and that's not like you don't have to kill anybody for that you know like that's just the way it goes and I'm with you. It's over. Let it be over. And I would consider, I mean, Saquon, honestly, next year's is... Send it to the Texans. Come on. Next year's is going to be his 10th year. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't even know how much... Yeah, I love Saquon. I just don't know how much value he has. You know, we certainly saw his peak and the Texans are having a hard enough time getting Woody Marks going and David Montgomery going. Right, I mean, I just like... that's what i'm saying like i'm saying for if you're the Eagles not not just for the Texans but like for the Eagles if if you're Philly right now how do you look at this because Dallas i mean it's like by the time we're ready to compete for a championship again um what's Saquon gonna have left in the tank right yeah i i don't know what the answer to that is but i think that's how you have to start to look at timelines here.