Amid the jubilation, an Eagle sounds a warning about the lessons of 2023 and the missteps of 2025

Jordan Mailata’s voice turned serious.

Strangely so.

The veteran left tackle was standing in the corner of a locker room that buzzed with an exhilarating blend of jubilation: part pride, part relief, part glee. The Eagles had just overcome a 19-point deficit to beat the Rams, 33-26, for their 19th win in 20 games. They did so on the strength of four fourth-down conversions, a 17-play game-winning drive, and two blocked field goals, the second of which was returned for a gratuitous 61-yard touchdown by a 336-pound defensive tackle to cover the spread with no time remaining.

There is a peculiar sort of joy in the wake of games you easily could have lost.

Except there was Mailata, enjoying the moment, sure, but also wondering aloud about the sustainability of it all. At some point, he said, a performance like Sunday’s will end up biting the Eagles.

“It will,” he said. “And, essentially, it will be 2023 all over again. I will say it.”

These were heavy words. The year 2023 is a visceral number in Eagles lore. It is more than a number, really. It is an event, one that has achieved the lexical shorthand assigned to those with lasting reverberations. To mention 2023 is to mention all that it represents, without further explanation. In normal circumstances, the Eagles would prefer you not mention it all.

Yet, Mailata did not just mention it. He mentioned it unprompted. After a win. While 3-0. Minutes after he sprinted onto the field as Jordan Davis rumbled 61 yards toward the 0:00 in the back end zone.

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It was a warning, and it is one that the Eagles would be wise to let marinate. As they unpack the tape of Sunday’s wild win, they should remember just how tenuous NFL success can be. Back in 2023, the Eagles were saying a lot of the same things they are saying now. They opened that season with a 25-20 win that ended with New England 20 yards short of a game-winning touchdown. In Week 4, they needed overtime to beat the Commanders. They improved to 5-0 after trailing the Rams late in the second quarter.

Sound familiar?

None of those victories was as fraught as these first three of 2025. A couple of CeeDee Lamb drops and a couple of missed field goals are all that separate the Eagles from 1-2. In fact, the Rams had so many other outs on Sunday that, by a certain point, they seemed destined to lose. A third-and-goal at the Eagles’ 2-yard line yielded only a chip-shot field goal, thanks to offensive holding. The Rams settled for another short field goal after a drive stalled on the Eagles’ 15-yard line. In the second half, a questionable taunting call on Puka Nacua knocked the Rams back from the Eagles’ 40-yard line to their own 45.

It wasn’t pretty. Even when the Eagles had All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson, who left the game with a neck injury, the Rams showed a startling ability to disrupt the Eagles up front. They sacked Jalen Hurts four times, one resulting in a fumble, and held Saquon Barkley to 46 yards on 18 carries.

The Eagles were lucky that they were only down by 26-7 before realizing the benefits of getting A.J. Brown the football.

“Just looking back, oh my God, the way we were playing up front was not Eagle football,” Mailata said. “Turn on that film, you can see it. Running the wrong plays, running run plays when it’s a pass play and pass plays when it’s a run play. It was the worst half of football we could put on film. And you will see it.”

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Don’t get it twisted. Mailata wasn’t fuming. That the Eagles are 3-0 in spite of the way they’ve played partly is a testament to their greatness. They are a wholly dispiriting opponent. You must be nearly perfect to beat them, and yet they can be wholly imperfect and beat you. There is an inevitability to them. It takes a special sort of team to march 91 yards on 17 plays and score a go-ahead touchdown while taking the game clock from 8 minutes, 42 seconds to 1:48.

“I think we need to be real with ourselves,” Mailata said. “We can’t just be a team that is just finding ways to win. Getting wins in the NFL is tough, but that can’t be part of our DNA. What can be part of our DNA is the fight that we displayed out here. The way that we had each other’s backs. That can be part of our DNA. But we have to tidy up, because we can’t be a team that just finds ways to win.”

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This was a warning.

But it also was a promise.

One of the legacies of ’23 was a state of hypervigilance.

“The guys who were here,” Mailata said, “will make sure it never repeats itself again.”