January 28, 2026
Denny Medley/Imagn Images
Jalen Hurts, Nick Sirianni, and the Eagles are in a tricky offseason that few teams ever have to navigate.
Doug Pederson stood atop the Art Museum steps eight years ago and declared "our new norm."
The Philadelphia Eagles had just won their first Super Bowl, millions of fans swarmed to the city for the parade on a freezing February morning because they finally got to see one, and better yet, they had a team that looked like it was set to bring them so much more.
"This is our new norm," Pederson told a team and a city that were both on top of the world that day. "To be playing football in February."
Of course, now we know that it never worked out that way.
That team got old quick, patchwork signings and trades to fill up new deficiencies didn't help with that, the Nick Foles-Carson Wentz argument sewed an irreparable discord within the building (as stories from players in the years since have revealed), injuries rapidly outpaced depth, and then finally, a benching of Wentz for a young Jalen Hurts and a stubbornness from Pederson to keep his assistant coach Press Taylor around brought what was originally thought to be a golden era to a bitter, smoldering end after just a few short years.
A new era of success, marked by Hurts, Nick Sirianni, and the core that carried over from Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, Fletcher Cox, and Brandon Graham rose out of it, but that initial window from 2017 did close.
Part of it was just the NFL passing the organization by.
A lot of it, though, was the Eagles inadvertently shutting it themselves, by Pederson, by Howie Roseman's mistakes as the acting general manager (see Jalen Reagor), and even Wentz as the long-since former franchise quarterback.
Now the Eagles of today, though not exact, are at a similar jam with their hands on the sash.
An Eagles receiver lamenting a drop in the playoffs is an eerily familiar sight.
This era of the team won a Super Bowl, has been to two even, and has its championship window still open, yet feels like it's suddenly just a couple of poor decisions and a down year away from slamming this one shut, too.
The Eagles need a new offensive coordinator, again, because Sirianni and his internal replacements have twice now proven incapable of running a competent offensive scheme after their more established playcallers get poached by other teams following a Super Bowl run.
The search has been on, but has proceeded slowly. High-profile and notable candidates are progressively getting crossed off the board from taking other jobs around the league as the weeks go by. And the longer this goes, the more the fear has time to get rooted among fans that the Eagles are going to back themselves into a corner and make an underwhelming decision, with the full knowledge that playcalling power can't afford to go back to Sirianni – and maybe with the additional fear now that the Eagles are their own worst enemy in their OC search.
Hurts, even after a still recent Super Bowl MVP performance, is here needing to prove himself to many again after his own underwhelming season, in that he's willing to take varied snaps under center, that he's willing to take off on designed runs and keep using his legs, and that he's willing to try and thread tight passes through the middle rather than live in fear of interceptions.
But even then, he'll have to do so with an overall offense that's getting older, expensive, and may just have to take a step back next season in overall talent.
By all accounts, the general presumption is that leading receiver A.J. Brown won't be an Eagle for much longer, while Jahan Dotson and Dallas Goedert are up for free agency paydays, too. Saquon Barkley is about to turn 29 with a ton of mileage on him, especially after getting constantly hit at the line throughout all of this past season, while the ever-saving grace of that elite O-line has spent all year injured, slowed down, and suddenly not looking all too young anymore themselves.
Lane Johnson never returned from his Lisfranc injury and is pushing into his late 30s, Landon Dickerson is 27 but looked like he aged to 37 from trying to power through his own ailments all year, Cam Jurgens is still just 26 but never looked fully recovered from his back surgery, and Jordan Mailata will be 29 and had his own ruts this season where he just didn't look his usual overpowering self on the edge.
And all that's before even getting to the defense, which is still young, talented, and was managed extraordinarily by defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, but is about to get pricey, too. Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Quinyon Mitchell, and Cooper DeJean are all establishing themselves as long-term pieces, but with that are the extensions that are going to suddenly stockpile over the next few years and take up even more cap resources, which inevitably brings on tougher decisions.
Jordan Davis broke out as an invaluable piece to the Eagles' defense this past season.
It's all a super fine line to walk, one that is obviously the ultimate luxury to because it meant winning the Super Bowl, but also one that comes with shifted and far greater expectations, especially in this town.
It comes with the weight of a "new norm," of going from the goal of winning just one Super Bowl, which is lofty enough alone, to multiple, and of keeping that contending window open for as long as sustainably possible.
The Eagles of the Pederson-Wentz era ultimately couldn't do it. They're immortal for doing the once thought impossible with Nick Foles miraculously leading the charge, but they crumbled trying to push forward in maintaining that.
Now the Eagles of the Hurts-Sirianni era is standing at the windowsill trying to keep itself in annual contention.
But if they're not careful over these next few months, they might just end up slamming it all down on their figurative hand.
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