October 07, 2026
Bill Streicher/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
So how much longer does the Jalen Hurts era really have left?
This era of the Philadelphia Eagles is over.
Their window to compete, as fans have come to know this group, is shut.
It's a shock, because it happened so suddenly and so early into what could've still been a manageable 2-2 season, but it's the reality to come to grips with now.
Lane Johnson retired on Tuesday, and he more than earned the right to make that call after 14 outstanding years, but the Eagles of right now are nowhere near equipped to recover from that kind of loss – of a near-guaranteed Hall of Fame right tackle – to their roster.
The Eagles of right now are heavily injured, have a stalled-out mess of an offense, and while luck and some Jalen Hurts heroics willed them to their first two wins against some bad teams in the Commanders and Titans, they ran hard out of both the last two games against a good Bears team (even without Caleb Williams) and a better Rams club (thanks to a woefully incompetent fourth-quarter meltdown).
So Johnson's announced decision to hang his cleats up on Tuesday was more than enough to tell any rational Eagles fan that this year's team is pretty much cooked, because no pocket for Hurts or gap at the line for – I guess Will Shipley? – can hold up without him.
But Wednesday's just as shocking trade of the struggling Cam Jurgens, who was a Super Bowl-winning center not that long ago, to the Baltimore Ravens felt like general manager Howie Roseman showing fans himself – because he's unlikely to outright say it: The rest of the 2026 season is a wash. Time to rebuild.
The Eagles are getting a 2027 fifth-round draft pick back from Baltimore, along with a 2028 second-rounder, which when paired with the 2028 first that they also have from the Patriots for the A.J. Brown trade, carries far more value and lays out a rough timeline for how Roseman might be intending to gear the team back up.
Between the Eagles' own first- and second-round picks that they'll have in 2027, and then the four selections that they'll have through Rounds 1 and 2 in 2028, those should be ample and premium resources to invest back into an O-line that doesn't have Johnson anymore, or Jurgens, and probably won't have the injury-riddled and also struggling Landon Dickerson by then either.
Through the next two years, the slate should be wiped clean, maybe with Jordan Mailata as the only remaining holdover.
But until then, this is the spot for Drew Kendall, Willie Lampkin, Markel Bell (who Johnson highlighted as his successor back in training camp), and any other young lineman who is now immediately next in line on the depth chart to try and earn a job.
Take whatever wins you might be able to earn along the way as a bonus, because they might be tough to come by for a bit.
The Eagles will fly out to London to play the talented 3-1 Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, and that might be another loss that's already lined up. The real question now might be 'how bad can it get?'
Then there are the far greater questions for the future, which have way more weight to them now than they've ever had.
Does Nick Sirianni survive this?
Yeah, he's been to two Super Bowls and won one, and until this year, had the Eagles in the playoffs at minimum. But throughout his entire run as the Eagles' head coach, he's been a polarizing figure, with notorious tendencies that always seem to re-emerge and disrupt his own offense whenever there isn't a proven playcaller (like Shane Steichen or Kellen Moore) to override him.
The Eagles' offense has no identity so far under Nick Sirianni and Sean Mannion.
So far, Sean Mannion's Eagles offense has looked a lot like the mess Kevin Patullo was running last year as a lame duck offensive coordinator, but to which Sirianni could never offer a clear answer as to who exactly was calling the shots.
Does that hubris finally catch up?
And what happens to Jalen Hurts past this year?
He's had just as big of a hand in the Eagles' success since he became the starting quarterback, but has also had endless debate around how good of a quarterback he really is (even after six years), with just as much bad tape where he's too hesitant or too concerned about putting the ball in even a remote chance of danger, compared to good where he's free and letting passes fly.
Once upon a time, he was a confusing choice of a second-round draft pick for the Eagles during an entirely remote NFL Draft in 2020.
It didn't make sense. They had Carson Wentz as their guy, and there was no way they would ever move him. They couldn't.
But they did, and they even fired Doug Pederson before that, who to that point, was the only coach to ever win them a Super Bowl.
No one's ever safe, and Sirianni and Hurts have to know that. They have to be feeling the heat now, too.
As for the fans, who have 13 more games to watch this year with the odds of them being meaningful suddenly not looking so great now, it's an unfamiliar spot.
It's a spot about asking constant questions of individual players rather than final results, about paying a lot more attention to college football and trade ideas that fetch draft capital, and of maybe taking some stress out of Sunday for a while.
It's a spot where you have to shift yourself into thinking about how the Eagles can make the playoffs and then maybe go for the Super Bowl again tomorrow, rather than today.
It's a spot where you have to say "one day..." again.
And that's tough, because the Eagles have managed to keep themselves out of that spot for five years.
For five years, every day during football season, and even well before that, was about how the Eagles were going to win the Super Bowl this year.
But that run is over now. The window closed.
Johnson's retirement slammed the sill down.
Jurgens' trade was looking down to see your hand caught in it.
Yeah...rough couple of days...
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