July 23, 2025
Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images
Eagles GM Howie Roseman has learned a few lessons on how to defend a Super Bowl title.
The Philadelphia Eagles were in a whole new world seven years ago.
They were finally Super Bowl champions, and entered training camp that summer having to defend that title for the first time ever.
But the offseason was short, players who were banged up had little time to recover, and for general manager Howie Roseman, he alluded to trying to keep that 2017 miracle team together rather than improving it.
He learned a few lessons from that.
So here the Philadelphia Eagles are in 2025, Super Bowl champions again, but with a different approach, a very differently constructed roster, and better knowledge from Roseman on how to gear back up for the follow-up.
The team is in a good position now, the GM said ahead of training camp at the NovaCare Complex on Wednesday.
But that's only the starting line.
"I think, when I look back at that moment, some of the lessons – and there were a lot of lessons – and we've talked about it over the course of the year...as much as you love the players, the staff, we gotta keep getting better," Roseman told the local media under the South Philadelphia sun of the differences between 2025 and 2018. "There are teams that are improving throughout the offseason that we gotta keep up with, and we got to do whatever it takes to put our best team forward, our best foot forward."
Up front, it helps that the Eagles have nearly all of their star-studded offense, along with arguably the NFL's best offensive line, returning and with each of the key names in their primes – Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and so on.
The defense lost a lot of experience in the spring between defensive backs Darius Slay and C.J. Gardner-Johnson and pass rushers Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, and Milton Williams. But it has an influx of youth everywhere, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio still there to form and guide it all, and budding stars like Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean, Nolan Smith, and Jalyx Hunt lined up to fully take over at their respective positions.
These Eagles are much better suited to move forward, whereas the 2018 team was meant more to stay where it was, which was a trap that carried consequences into the years that followed – all as that roster only got older, slower, and increasingly fragile.
"And those are hard decisions," Roseman said. "Those are hard conversations. It's not fun. But at the end of the day, we have a responsibility, and our responsibility is to continue to get better as a team.
"There's no resting on laurels, and sometimes those mean making some changes. We made some changes. I think when you look back at that 2018 team, there are a lot of lessons. We didn't start incredibly hot. Obviously, we finished really well. Had an opportunity in the second round of the playoffs, but when you look forward from that, not only what happened in '18, but what happened in '19, what happened in '20...I think that we're positioned, and that's all we are, because we gotta make good decisions.
"We're positioned to compete here, not only this year, but going forward."
But it's only just the starting line.
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