The Eagles Are 1 Of The Best Run Organizations In Pro Sports

After an impressive 32-point win, the Eagles are heading back to the Super Bowl. It is their 2nd time in 3 years, and the 3rd time in 8 years. This was also the 7th time in those 8 years they made the playoffs, and Sunday was their 9th playoff win. They have the 2nd most playoff wins since the year 2000. Not to mention it is the 10th time they have won the NFC East in that time.

All of this is to say, the Eagles have had a lot of success. For an organization that spent the bulk of the Super Bowl era as a bit of a doormat, they have turned things around to be one of the best-run organizations in Pro Sports.

But don't take my word for it. Take the word of someone who spent decades working in Football. Andrew Brandt was the Packers' VP from 1999 to 2008, and an Eagles consultant for several years after that. He joined The Best Show Ever this week and had some strong praise for how the Eagles run things. Here is some of what he had to say.

"I worked the cap for many years and I really admire teams like the Eagles and a few others that just consistently have sustained success with cap issues and are able to put the team together without regard to worrying about money issues and contract issues. I think what this team has done is amazing. Even a year ago when they were a good team, that obviously fell apart late. They identify the weaknesses and address them..."

Howie Roseman has his way with the cap. We talk about how the Dodgers found a loophole with deferred money to avoid the luxury tax. The Eagles do something kind of similar with the Salary Cap. Much of the Cap Hit for the players they sign is put at the end of a contract, or even in Void Years, and often they can even work around that and keep pushing it down the road.

For instance, the combination of Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, Saquon Barkley, and Dallas Goedert will cost the Eagles $65,494,277 next season. Dak Prescott alone with cost the Cowboys over $89 million and CeeDee Lamb will cost them over $35 million.

People say it will hurt them down the line, but they have been saying that for years and it has yet to catch up. They occasionally have one down year, get things cleaned up, and then bounce right back.

Howie Roseman's cap wizardry, and Jeffrey Luries' willingness to pay upfront bonuses to make that contract loophole work, give the Eagles a distinct advantage in not only keeping their own players but adding talent from elsewhere. Which is why they are so stacked, as Andrew Brandt went on to say.

"I just think this is a stacked team and they have done what I know. People get frustrated with it, but they do what these teams do that are elite. They play poorly at times. Yet always win. And they put it together yesterday in a blowout.

But I just think there's still a level this team can go. It's just stacked. And when people talk about personnel, when they're amongst their scouting staff in the NFL, you look around and you say, where's the weakness? Where do we attack offensively, defensively? Really hard to find on this team. Really hard to find."

They have the best run defense, the best pass defense, the best run offense, and contrary to popular belief, a very efficient pass offense.

This goes back to the cap thing, which allows them to be so stacked. They can sign their entire O-Line, sign both star WRs, have a star TE, sing their franchise QB, sign a star RB, and still have the space to fill out their defense.

But it also comes down to their talent evaluation. Something that in the past was an issue. Adding players like Jalen Carter, and Nolan Smith last year, then Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean this past draft, makes a huge difference. The passing defense might be a weakness if they didn't nail those picks as well as they did. LB might be an issue if they didn't find a diamond in the rough like Zack Baun.

"Addressing guys early in their contracts, making sure we never get to places where you're looking at free agency status for your best players, you're gonna have to sort of grovel at the leverage point that players have in free agency. That's always been a tradition with the Eagles. They've done a good job of that."

Another thing that plays into them having so much cap space is they take care of their guys early. They didn't have to pay Devonta Smith, AJ Brown, Landon Dickerson, or Jordan Mailata this past offseason. But they did. And at the time they made each of them the highest, or nearly the highest-paid players for their position.

But no one is ever the highest-paid player at their spot for long. Each deal sets the market for the next deal. CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson quickly beat the number set by Brown. Smith is already down to the 11th highest-paid WR. And when the Eagles signed Jalen Hurts before last season he was the highest-paid QB. 1.5 years later he is the 9th highest-paid QB and will be out of the top 10 soon.

The earlier you get deals done, the cheaper they are. Eagles have learned that. They take care of their player, keeping their stars happy, they don't risk losing them in FA, and they save cap space along the way.

Going back to the Cowboys, they learned just how much waiting hurts this past season. They let negotiations drag into something ugly with Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons. They ended up giving both of them a bigger contract than the Eagles gave Hurts and Brown and did not reach a deal with Micah Parsons (If they ever do it will cost them more than it would have if they did it this past offseason).

Will any of this lead to a Super Bowl? We will find out. But they have another shot this year when most teams struggle to get a single shot. That is because they continue to run things like a well-oiled machine.

Somehow very few teams have caught up to that, but the Chiefs are one of those teams that are also on top of these things. It is no coincidence that 1) Andy Reid comes from the same system and 2) They are one of the only teams with more consistent success than the Eagles in the modern era.

The Eagles didn't just win on Sunday, they beat the Commanders down. A 32-point blowout of their decision rival, to punch their ticket to the Super Bowl. After a couple of truly stressful wins to get to the NFC Championship game, they did everyone a favor and made this one easy, and let the celebration begin early.

Related: Eagles Offense Quiets The Critics On Way To The Super Bowl

So much was made about their offense coming into the week. National pundits, and some local ones, swore up and down the Eagles offense was not good enough to win. The conversation was "how will the Eagles offense keep up with the rookie wonder Jayden Daniels?"

They answered that by scoring 8 TDs. 7 of which came on the ground, which some people, including Jeff Kerr, pointed out was more rushing TDs than the Cowboys had all season long.

Now they will have a chance to not only make history but also to prevent history. They face the Chiefs, who are going for the first-ever 3-peat in NFL history. The first win came two years ago, versus the Eagles. A rematch the Eagles have been waiting for. A chance at revenge against the team that crushed their dreams back in 2023.

But that game is 2 weeks away. There will be plenty of time to preview that game, break down the matchups, and talk about how they can stop Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid from accomplishing that goal. For now, let's enjoy that win a little more.

What stood out the most from this beatdown? Which players deserve the spotlight? It was one of the most impressive games in franchise history period. So let's break it down by the numbers to see how great it really was.

People made a big deal about how Jalen Hurts would handle the blitz. In fairness, the Eagles passing game seemed to have little answer when the Rams or Packers blitzed in the prior 2 games. With the Commanders being such a blitz-heavy team, it was fair to wonder how Hurts and the Eagles passing game would respond. 

They blitzed on 17 of his drop backs. He completed 10 of 16 passes for 141 yards. He averaged 8.8 yards per attempt. Only Mahomes handled the blitz better this weekend with a YPA of 12.5, albeit he was blitzed on only 6 drop backs. Josh Allen was blitzed on 10 drop backs and averaged 6.6 YPA, and Jayden Daniels was blitzed 9 times (but never saw more than a 4-man rush) and averaged 4.6 YPA on a 37.5 completion %. 

Hurts did not set the world on fire when blitzed or anything. But he made quick efficient decisions. He was sacked on one of those blitzes, but mostly because he was given no time at all to react. For the majority of the game, he handled the blitz and delivered a timely pass for positive yards. That is a credit to Hurt, and it is a credit to Kellen Moore for finally giving Hurts options when blitzed. He had that quick pass option to AJ brown, or to Dallas Goedert, or Saquon Barkley. It turns out that when you give Hurts the tools, he can handle the blitz perfectly well. People who paid attention knew that. people who didn't pay attention got a nice little surprise.

Quinyon Mitchell shut Terry McLaurin down the first time the two teams met. The next time McLaurin beat him for a TD. So who won the 3rd meeting? It is not even close. Quinyon in a landslide.

Yes, McLaurin did have that 1 long TD. But that came vs Darius Slay. When he floated over to Quinyon's side, he didn't have a hope of doing anything. McLaurin had 1 catch for 7 yards. Meaning Scary Terry had as many catches as Quinyon himself did after the interception late in the game. Quinyon also gave up 1 catch to Zach Ertz for 3 yards. Apart from that, the Commanders got nothing done on Quinyon's side of the field. Quinyonomo Bay was locked down tight. He is a rookie, and went into an NFC Championship game vs one of the more dynamic WRs in the league, and never blinked. 

Cooper DeJean by the way only gave up 32 yards on 5 catches. Slay had the one slip up, it happens to every corner, but otherwise gave up only 2 catches for 14 yards the rest of the way. The Eagles CB tandem is as good as it gets, despite featuring 2 rookies and 1 34-year-old. They say you can't trust old corners or rookie corners, but that is all the Eagles have and they are the best in the league at shutting down the passing game.

We talked about how good the Eagles' pass defense is, but how about the run defense? Jayden Daniels escaped a few times, racking up 48 yards on the ground, but the Commanders RBs didn't have a prayer all game long. Between Brian Robinson and Austin Ekler, they gained just 51 yards on 20 attempts. 2.55 yards per carry.

This is not a new thing. Opposing RBs average just 4.08 yards per carry this season. It is only 3.9 since the bye week. QBs can run on them a bit, but RBs don't have a chance. 

The Commanders had 58 dropbacks. The Eagles D-Line had 30 pressures. 8 from Jalen Carter, 4 from Milton Williams, Moro Ojomo, and Nolan Smith, 3 from Jordan Davis, 2 from Jalyx Hunt, Josh Sweat, and Bryce Huff, and 1 from Oren Burks. They did that while never sending more than 4 rushers. The few times they blitzed, they compensated by dropping someone else into coverage.

Jayden Daniels is a tough guy to bring down. He made people miss several times. but he was almost never comfortable in the pocket. And while he was poised for a rookie, it definitely took him off his game a bit. His YPA dropped from 6.1 when in a clean pocket, to 3.3 when under pressure. His QB rating dropped from 82.1 to 47.9. And they mostly did a good job of keeping contained while getting that pressure. They only got 3 sacks, but make no mistake, the Eagles D-Line dominated that game.

How good is the Eagles rushing game? So good it is more explosive than any team's passing game. The Eagles have 9 plays on the ground of more than 15 yards. They have 5 total runs, and 4 TD runs of more than 40 yards. There are only 9 pass plays period in this postseason of more than 40 yards. The Eagles run game, is the most explosive part of any offense. You usually don't talk about a run game being explosive, but the Eagles is. Teams need to leave a saftey back to stop the run. Because if you bring that saftey up, and Saquon gets into the second level, it is over. Same goes for Hurts, and apparently Will Shipley.

It is why it was always silly when people said the Eagles can't win by just running the ball. They can and have all season long. They showed on Sunday they can also throw it really well, but they could go in, run the ball, and win. Because sooner or later Saquon Barkley is going to break one and change the game. He did it on the Eagles first play on Sunday.