February 09, 2026
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman has plenty of work ahead to get the Eagles back to Super Bowl contention.
Right after the clock hit 0:00 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, and as the confetti rained down to celebrate the revitalized Seahawks winning an otherwise mundane Super Bowl LX over the Patriots, the 2025 NFL season officially turned the page.
It’s the offseason right now for every team, including the champion Seahawks, who have a short time to figure out just how they’re going to reassemble a team good enough to hoist the Lombardi Trophy for the second straight year, an accomplishment that doesn’t typically happen for teams without an all-time great quarterback and head coach.
The Eagles were in this position at this time last season. They once believed they were on the same trajectory, having made two trips to the Super Bowl in a three-year span and playing well enough to win both, but ultimately claiming the first Lombardi of the Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts era in Super Bowl LIX.
Then it all fell apart as their offense plunged to rock bottom in 2025, to the point where their dependable defense could no longer carry the load by itself.
Seattle will see next season just how hard repeating can be, especially with losing its offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, who'll become head coach of the Raiders.
The Eagles lost their play caller, too, after last year's Super Bowl, but didn't adequately replace Kellen Moore, who left to take the Saints' head coach job. The Seahawks already have a major hole to fill, and all the victory cigars haven't yet fully burned and a parade hasn't yet passed through downtown Seattle.
As the Eagles taught us, one improper hire coupled with a few unexpected declines and some injuries could be the difference between reappearing in the championship game or exiting in the first round.
It’s already been an offseason of sweeping change for the Eagles, who fired their offensive coordinator, hired a new one, switched up several others on their offensive staff and last week were stunned by the abrupt stiff-arming of longtime offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, who decided after a tumultuous season that he’s done coaching the team’s offensive line.
More changes are in the works, as the Eagles are expected to continue finding new coaches for their offensive staff and have a truckload of in-house free agents who’ll either be playing elsewhere next year or negotiating a return.
But just as the Seahawks can learn from the Eagles’ mistakes in their attempt to repeat, the Eagles can learn from the Seahawks' ascent back to champions for the first time since 2013.
The Seahawks didn't even make the playoffs last year despite a 10-win campaign, finishing a game behind the Packers for the final Wild Card spot.
The most significant change they made was head coach Mike Macdonald firing offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb after one season to hire Kubiak, then swapping quarterbacks by trading Geno Smith to the Raiders and signing Sam Darnold in free agency.
Darnold was coming off a breakout season for the Vikings under Kevin O'Connell, whose sanity was hopefully checked on Sunday night the moment Darnold was exiting the field with the Lombardi in his hand. Kubiak, a branch of the Kyle Shanahan tree, runs a similar offense to O'Connell, who has coached under Sean McVay.
The fit was right from the start, and Darnold showed that his breakout season in Minnesota wasn't a fluke as he hit the 4,000-yard passing mark for the second straight season and made the Pro Bowl for the second straight year, providing the missing piece to an offense that played a mean second-fiddle to the NFL's top-ranked defense.
Could the same blueprint get the Eagles back to Super Bowl contention in 2026?
The Eagles are banking on the rising reputation of first-time coordinator Sean Mannion, an NFL coach for just two seasons, to revive an offense that has gradually decayed over the past three seasons, especially in the pass game.
Like Kubiak did in Seattle, Mannion is expected to bring concepts from the Shanahan/McVay offenses to Philly, with ample usage of motion, under center and play action – modern concepts the Eagles have too long refused to etch into their high school playbook.
Mannion might not have the perfect fit for his scheme in Hurts, but Hurts is far more accomplished than Darnold was before Darnold arrived in the Emerald City, and Hurts last year showed flashes of improvement as a timing and rhythm passer when given the opportunity.
Trying to see if Hurts can operate this new style of offense sure beats the alternative of a total reset.
Mannion inherits some question marks in a once-elite offensive line that encountered a major drop-off last year mostly due to injuries and with the futures of some of the team's playmakers – notably A.J. Brown and Dallas Goedert – uncertain, but team personnel chief Howie Roseman made it clear in January that the Eagles aren't rebuilding and there's an "urgency to win" in 2026.
Roseman, the team's longtime executive vice president of football operations, is a safe bet to make some very splashy moves this offseason intended to replenish the losses and add to what's generally considered one of the NFL's best overall rosters.
Fangio has as much talent, on paper, as the Seahawks did this season. Fortunately for the Eagles – and unfortunately for the Patriots – their road back to an NFC Championship isn't obstructed by Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen. Nobody in their right mind is putting Darnold in that company.
Per BetMGM, which already released its Super Bowl odds for next year, the Eagles and Packers are tied for the third-lowest odds (+1400) to represent the NFC in Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium, behind only the Seahawks and Rams.
The elements are in place for the Eagles to soar again, but this won't be an easy task. Roseman needs more hits than misses this offseason and the novice Mannion needs to validate the high risk the Eagles took in hiring him to refurbish the offensive playbook.
But nobody could've watched Super Bowl LX and thought the Eagles were that far away.
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