Expect the Eagles to win 14 games and return to the Super Bowl

It’s astounding, in a matter of months, how bad a quarterback Jalen Hurts became, how ineffective a coach Nick Sirianni was revealed to be, how overwhelmed DeVonta Smith was sure to become without A.J. Brown, how formerly brilliant defensive coordinator Vic Fangio had devolved into mediocrity, how irrelevant an elite defense was projected to be, and how uselessly a suddenly healthier offensive line was projected to perform.

Because all of these things need to happen for the Eagles to not win the NFC East and surge to a third Super Bowl in five years.

A year ago, most prognosticators chose the Eagles to at least reach the NFC championship game if not to repeat as Super Bowl champions. So why are expectations so low for 2026?

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Currently, the forecasters rate as highly or higher than the Eagles: The Rams, whom the Eagles own; the Seahawks, the flukiest Super Bowl winner since the 2011 Giants; the Packers, after five straight years of postseason flops; and the Lions, who, well, are the Lions.

This is madness.

If the Eagles’ offensive line had been healthy in 2025 they would have won a second straight Lombardi Trophy. It’s healthy today. They should be everyone’s favorite. They should roll through 2026.

» READ MORE: Prediction time: The Inquirer’s game-by-game Eagles picks, NFL playoff selections and major award winners

What games worry you? At Dallas on Thanksgiving? OK. Seattle on Dec. 19? OK, but it’s a wintertime home game. At San Francisco on Jan. 3? The Silicon Valley Power electrical substation might have winnowed the 49ers to nothing by then.

There’s no way this team should lose more than three games, four at the most. They’ve got a Pro Bowl quarterback, a superstar running back, a franchise receiver, and a genius running a defense with more talent than any defense in team history that didn’t include Reggie White.

Yes, they lost in the first round of the playoffs last year, and, yes, they’re installing a new offense with a new coordinator, and all of that is scary.

You know what happened the last time they installed a new offense with a new coordinator?

They won Super Bowl LIX.

They begin their run to Super Bowl LXI at 4:25 p.m. Sunday, hosting the Commanders, who lost All-Pro left tackle Laremy Tunsil to injury in training camp. The Eagles should win by about 20 points.

Maybe then the fog will lift from the minds of the deluded.

It’s tempting and understandable to dwell on the departure of Brown, and it’s important to not diminish it. No Eagles receiver ever connected four seasons of at least 1,000 receiving yards, and Brown did so as Hurts’ No. 1 target. Hurts is a running quarterback whose passing offense did not average even 200 yards per game the past two seasons. A.J. in Philly was special.

It’s tempting, but unwise. Teams occasionally lose top receivers but succeed nevertheless. The Chiefs lost Tyreek Hill after the 2021 season but still went to the next three Super Bowls and won the next two.

Smith has 13 100-yard games in his five-year career (plus two more in the playoffs), and he played four of those years with Brown and two with Saquon Barkley, both high-volume offensive weapons. He’d have 25 games with 100 yards if he’d been option No. 1. Expect him to have five or six this season.

Why?

» READ MORE: Now out of A.J. Brown’s shadow, is DeVonta Smith ready for his close-up? ‘The guy was built to do this’

Because he’s a Heisman Trophy winner who has never been asked to be the best player on a great team, though he’s shown every capacity for the job. He’s a route-runner on par with Justin Jefferson. He finds the soft spots in zones with uncanny instinct. He’s mature, he’s a leader, and, at 27, he’s in the middle of his prime.

Brown set the Eagles’ record for receiving yards with 1,496 in 2022. Zach Ertz set the record for catches with 116 in 2018. Terrell Owens set the record for TD catches with 14 in 2004.

Smith could challenge each of these … or all of them.

New coordinator Sean Mannion wasn’t hired to implement a new offense that would turn the Eagles into Air Coryell. He was hired to implement an offense that would emulate the general run-game efficiency of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and Rams coach Sean McVay. Expect that to happen.

The Eagles signed Jonathan Greenard to a four-year, $98 million deal to improve the pass rush. His injured pectoral muscle is a concern, and maybe he won’t play for a while, but he’s going to be more effective than trade-deadline addition Jaelan Philips, who left via free agency to wails of consternation.

Really, what did you lose … a guy with two sacks in eight regular-season games and zero tackles in a playoff loss?

An undrafted free agent four years ago, safety Reed Blankenship’s superpower lay in his ability to understand the job and know where he was supposed to be. His Achilles’ heel, bless his heart, was his inability to get there rapidly and make plays once he arrived.

There never was a doubt when the Eagles traded up 10 picks in the second round of the 2024 draft, that Cooper DeJean would become a safety. He played nickel corner his first two seasons, but he’s where he belongs now. He often will slide to nickel against certain teams. Cool. You know who else did that?

Second-round safety Brian Dawkins, who’s now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

They played maybe three games with a fully functional offensive line. Even if Jalen Hurts doesn’t improve, and even if the offense doesn’t explode, there will be better efficiency, a better running game, more time for Hurts to find Smith and Dallas Goedert and Barkley.

There’s a thought: Use the best player on the team more, and throw him the ball.

Barkley was targeted 68 times per season his last two years with the Giants, when offensive maestro Brian Daboll was the head coach. He was targeted less than 48 times per season in his first two seasons with the Eagles, when Kellen Moore and Kevin Patullo called plays.

There’s a reason Daboll is considered an offensive maestro, unlike Moore and Patullo.

Normally, the subtraction of an elite coach like Jeff Stoutland would be crippling, but every offensive line starter has been coached by Stout for at least three years, and every one of them has never had another line coach. No matter how much the scheme changes, Stout’s replacement, Chris Kuper, isn’t going to fracture the foundation.

There never was an indication that Patullo would be a competent offensive coordinator or play-caller. There remains no indication that Mannion will be competent, either … but, to be fair to both, there never was much indication that Shane Steichen would be competent, either. He’d done it for one full season in Philly before 2022, and his offense that season powered the Eagles to Super Bowl LVII.

Barkley’s workload plummeted. In 2024, at the age of 27, he touched the ball 482 total times between the regular season and playoffs. In 2025, at 28, that number fell to 346, a difference of 136 touches, a decrease of roughly 28%. It was like getting four games of rest.

Like him or loathe him, Sirianni wins games. Maybe that’s been because of Fangio’s genius, Howie Roseman‘s personnel management, or Jeffrey Lurie’s deep pockets. In any case, even if Sirianni isn’t a main reason they’re winning, he’s certainly not impeding their path to wins. And to argue that they’re winning in spite of him is as foolhardy as it is disingenuous.

The winning begins Sunday.

Listen to the latest episode

The regular season is almost here! All the preseason talk has been about Jalen Hurts and new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion. But there’s somebody else who will have a big say in how high the Eagles fly. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane explains why this year, in the absence of traded star A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith has to take the next step, while also taking charge of the Eagles’ wide receivers group. Plus, Jeff dips into the mailbag for listener questions about Jalen Hurts and some key roster spots. Listen here.

Listen to all episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts.