7 Teams Who Could Prevent The Eagles From Winning Back To Back

Once you get 1, you only become hungrier for more. The Eagles have had 1 parade, and now it becomes about getting a 2nd one, and hopefully more.

Can the Eagles repeat as champions? Only 9 teams have ever done it in nearly 60 years of Super Bowls. Obviously we just saw the Chiefs win back-to-back before being smacked down by the Eagles in the 3rd. But can the Eagles become the 10th team? Which teams are the biggest threats to the Eagles getting a 2nd straight championship?

The Eagles just crushed the Chiefs, so they feel like less of a threat. But they are still the only team to ever make it to 3 straight Super Bowls.

Some things might change for them, but they will still have Patrick Mahomes on 1 side, and Chris Jones on the other. They are also still coached by Andy Reid and have Steve Spanuolo coaching the defense. They also suddenly have a good young WR duo with Rashee Rice back healthy, and Xavier Worthy on the rise.

Teams tend to have a tough time the year after losing the Super Bowl. But you can never count the Chiefs out. We now know the Eagles are the better team, but there is a full off-season for the Chiefs to fix some of their flaws. As long as Mahomes is there, they will always be a team to take seriously.

The two teams will face off at Arrowhead this season. The Eagles beat them there in 2023 despite their many issues that season.

The Lions did not get a fair shake this year. The injuries on defense just mounted up. The Lions had just 10 of their 22 starters/ main backups make it to the playoffs. Among the missing players were Aidan Hutchinson, Carlton Davis, Alim McNeil, and Marcus Davenport. Imagine if the Eagles were missing Darius Slay, Jalen Carter, Josh Sweat, and Nolan Smith.

But even with the injured players being back for next season, they have new issues to deal with. Notably losing both their coordinators, who were superstars on that coaching staff. How much of their success on offense was Ben Johnson? How much of the defense was Aaron Glenn?

We saw this trip the Eagles up a couple of years ago. Nick Sirianni floundered after losing both of his guys. Dan Campbell is in a similar spot where he is not a playcaller and relies a lot on his coordinators. It will be interesting to see how that goes for them.

But new coaches aside, the Lions are a very talented team, and a revenge tour after last season is not out of the question. The Eagles might even see the Lions for Opening Night.

The Ravens have been knocking on the door for years and keep coming up short. But Lamar Jackson might be the most talented QB in the league right now. Eventually, that could mean something.

To compare it to baseball, we saw the Dodgers flounder in the playoffs year after year despite their immense talent. They finally broke through. If the Ravens keep bashing their head into that dam, it may eventually break.

Like the Eagles, they have a dynamic run game, featuring both a star RB and a QB that can kill you on the ground. Their defense needs some tinkering, and their stars need to stop choking in big moments, but with a good offseason, they can certainly break through next season.

After beating the Ravens in the regular season last year, they avoid each other in the regular season this year. So if they do meet, it would not come until February in San Francisco.

Everything I just wrote about the Ravens applies to the Bills too. They have come so close in the past few years.

If Dalton Kincaid doesn't drop that ball, maybe they go on to beat the Chiefs. They likely would have been smoked by the Eagles, because the Eagles were a freight train not stopping for anybody, but the point is the Bills are close. Josh Allen needs more help on offense. Get him some dynamic skill players, they can get over that hump.

The Eagles travel up to Buffalo this season at some point. One of many tough road games.

Jayden Daniels had one of the best rookie seasons we have ever seen. Getting his team all the way to the NFC Championship game, and playing well while doing so. But you learn the most about any player, especially a QB, in years 2 and 3.

Defensive Coordinators will pour over his tape this summer. If there is a flaw, they will find it. We will learn how special Daniels is in how he adapts to other teams adapting to him. A lot of QBs have had 1 great year, then fallen back to Earth. The great ones keep growing.

Take Hurts. He was elite in 2022, but then teams starting blitzing him like crazy, and he hit a slight speed bump in 2023. But this past season he was elite vs the blitz. Can Daniels adapt to how DCs defend him on the fly? That will decide how good of a QB he is.

They did rely a lot last season on players on contract years. Many might not be back. So it could be an adjustment year for the whole team. But if Daniels is as talented as he looked in year one, they are a team to watch not just next year, but going forward.

Obviously as division rivals these two teams will see each other a lot. And with how things look for the Cowboys and Giants, it could be the Eagles and Commanders butting heads for NFC East Supremacy for the next several years.

The Houston Texans were what the Commanders were in 2023. A team with an exciting rookie QB, who seemed poised for greatness. 2024 was a down year, mind you even in a down year they still made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

I still think Stroud can be special. But as we just talked about with Daniels, he had an adjustment year. There are a lot of very smart defensive coordinators, and they figured something out. Now it is time for Stroud to adjust back. We saw in College, and in his rookie season, his potential is sky-high. He was one of the only QBs to be able to put up big points on those Georgia Bulldog Championship defenses. They also have Demeco Ryans, who I think is one of the better young coaches in the league.

People jumped the gun on the Texans this past year. An adjustment period should have been expected. But now that they got it out of the way, I think this could be the year the Texans make some noise.

The Eagles could only see them in the Super Bowl. So Philly does not have to worry about them for a while, but if the Eagles do make it back, the Texans might be there to try and stop the repeat.

A lot of what I said about the Texans applies to the Packers. Their QB was not a rookie, but he was a first-time starter who exploded onto the scene. But there was less love for Love in year 2. He was banged up, never hit his stride, and looked terrible vs the Eagles in the playoffs. But it is worth saying Patrick Mahomes also looked awful vs the Eagles defense.

They are still a team that could be on the rise. It will be a season where we learn a lot about both Jordan Love and Matt LeFleur. LeFleur gets a ton of praise and has had great success in the regular season since taking over in 2019. That has yet to turn into post-season success. It is about time he changes that narrative.

The Eagles travel to Lambeau next season. You might be noticing a trend that they play a lot of these teams on the road this season.

When Saquon Barkley signed with the Eagles, we knew they were getting a very good player. What we did not know at the time was how good. We did not know that he would flirt with history, and eventually do something only 8 other players have ever done and that no Eagles RB has ever done.

He came out of the gates on fire. A 3 TD debut against the Packers down in Brazil. Including 109 rushing yards and 23 receiving yards. But that was just the start. He went on to smash personal records, both single-game and single-season, smash the Eagles single-season and single-game rushing record, and as mentioned, become only the 9th player in NFL history to rush for 2000 yards.

Related: Saquon Barkley Hits 2000, And Eagles Clinch The 2-Seed

He even flirted with breaking Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record. 101 yards shy with a game to go. The Eagles decided to prioritize rest and health over the record, and he never got the chance to break it. But it was indisputably a tremendous debut season.

Where does it rank among the All-Time best seasons by Eagles players though? Is it the best of all time, or or there Eagles who have put together even better seasons?

They have been around for a long time. They have existed since 1933. They only recently started winning, but have done a lot of winning to make up for lost time (2 Super Bowls now). But even when they were losing, the team has had some amazing players. But what were the best seasons by those players in franchise history?

Keep in mind I am 31. I tried to take players that came from before my time into account, but obviously, my knowledge base is mostly 2000 until now, when I was old enough to truly appreciate and remember what I was watching. So there may be a slightly modern bias.

This one is tough. I don't know how to rank it because I genuinely have no one I can talk to in my life who was old enough to not only witness it but remember it. But on paper, it is tough to argue with.

Van Buren led the NFL in rushing yards, rushing TDs, yards per game, kick return average, kick return TDs, and all-purpose yards. He carried the team on his back to make the Eagles the league's highest-scoring offense. They did not win it all that year. But we aren't going by team performance, we are going by individual performance. And what Steve Van Buren did that season was special.

Another old-school player I have no frame of reference for. I am sure someone will give me grief for not ranking this, or Van Buren higher, but again, I didn't see it, and apart from a few callers to the station, I don't know many people who did witness it. Still, Bednarik deserves love. He had 10 takeaways in 12 games this season. 4 fumbles and 6 interceptions. That alone is worthy of a spot on this list.

We will get to what TO did this season in a bit, but it was special for McNabb too. 3,875 yards, 31 TDS, only 8 picks, and 3 rushing TDs. Also remember, he did not have TO for the playoff run. TO broke his leg and didn't return to the Super Bowl. So McNabb had to help carry the team to get over that NFC Championship game hump without his star WR.

He led them to wins over the Vikings and Falcons, that Falcons game coming in biting cold, and threw 4 TDs and no picks in those 2 games. It all came off the wheels a bit in the Super Bowl, which kept him from climbing higher on this list. But it was still a special season by the best QB in Eagles history.

Oh, and McNabb had one of the best single-game performances ever for the Eagles, throwing for 464 yards and 5 TDs.

It can be hard to judge defensive players if you don't see them play. Especially from the '90s and earlier when we didn't have stats available that track yards given up when targeted the way we do now. Also, I was just recently born when Eric Allen played out this season, so I can't go off my memory either.

But I can ask people who did watch Eric Allen, and shutdown is the word that goes around. But even if you weren't around to watch him play, like in my case, the few stats we do have tell a convincing story. 6 interceptions. He turned 4 of them into a pick 6. 4 TDs by a defensive player is crazy. Most defensive players hope they get 1 in their career. 4 in a single season is hard to imagine, but he pulled it off.

Add in what everyone says about him being a shutdown corner, I had to get Eric Allen on the list. Side note, the NFL needs to put Eric Allen into the Hall of Fame. That may finally happen this year.

The Wentz era did not go as well as we all thought it would. He barely got into his 2nd contract before he was being traded off the team. But let's not forget how well it started to earn him that 2nd contract.

33 TDs and 3,296 yards in 13 games. He had the Eagles playing better than any team in the league. And he didn't exactly have tons of help at WR. Zack Ertz was great of course, and Alshon Jeffrey and Nelson Agholor both had solid seasons, but it is not like he was throwing to AJ Brown and Devonta Smith like Hurts does, or to Terrell Owens like McNabb did for 1 season. He was going to win MVP that season if he did not tear his ACL.

Also, credit to him for tearing his ACL and staying on the field to throw a go-ahead TD in that game.

Much like Carson Wentz, Hurts should have won MVP this season. Had he not missed two games, maybe he would have. But a late injury kept him out for 2 games.

If anything that made his case stronger though. Because while we heard all season any QB could win with this Eagles team, it turned out that was not the case. They went 0-2 without him, despite being 14-1 when he played. There was a lot of talent around him sure, we will talk about one of those players soon, but there is no denying how special Hurts was.

Nearly 4500 total yards, over 30 total TDs, all top go with just 6 interceptions. Hurts was fantastic that season. Then he went on to be tremendous in the Super Bowl. He played better than Mahomes did, his defense just let him down. But with the game on the line, and his team down 8 points, he put together a game-tying drive, scoring the TD and the 2-point conversion himself. He had 370 total yards and 4 total TDs.

The TO era in Philly is the biggest waste of potential ever. He should have stayed an Eagle for the rest of his career, and gone on to help the Eagles to their 1st ever Super Bowl, and maybe even help Donovan McNabb put together a Hall of Fame Case. Instead, it went up in smoke after one magical season. But what a season it was.

1200 yards in just 14 games. he took what was a very good team, and made it special. I don't think the stats even do it justice. And then to break his leg, but come back early to play in the Super Bowl, and then catch 9 passes for 122 yards, he had to place highly on this list.

If only he and McNabb could put their differences aside, and if only Joe Banner didn't foolishly let his star WR walk, maybe we could have gotten more of this, and perhaps better than this. Instead, everyone involved acted like fools, especially Joe Banner, and the Eagles had to wait 13 years to finally win it all.

27 TDs, 2 interceptions, in 10 starts. That is hard to beat. I originally had it ranked 10th, but I just kept moving it up the list when I thought about it more. Throw in the 7 TD game, and it had to rank top 5.

Some people may turn more to what he did in 2017, and winning the Super Bowl. But that was 2 great performances, not a great season. In 2013 he was great all around. From when he took over, to the end of the season. It's a season that literally got some of his gear into the Hall Of Fame, with him tying Peyton Manning's single-game TD record.

TO is only the second-highest WR on this list. Why? Because AJ Brown had an even better season in 2022. 1,496 yards and 11 TDs. A new single-season record, one he almost broke the following season. Brown was a force all season long. No one could cover him. The highlight was a 3 TD game vs the Steelers where he racked up 156 yards on 6 catches.

The like TO, it carried over into the Super Bowl. He made a big play early in the game to put the Eagles ahead. He finished the game with 96 yards and a TD.

It was LeSean McCoy who set the Eagles record that Saquon broke this season. 1607 yards and 9 TDs just on the ground. You can add 539 yards and 2 TDs through the air on top of that. His 2,146 Scrimmage Yards that season led the league. 5.1 yards per carry.

I didn't think we would ever see a better season by an RB for the Eagles. Certainly not in the modern era. Saquon eventually eclipsed him, but let's not forget just how great Shady was.

In that season, McCoy had the legendary Snow Bowl game, which is still one of the greatest single-game performances by an Eagles player.

You don't often see Offensive Line make these kinds of lists. But I had to get Lane Johnson in here. The question was where. Looking at his seasons, 2022 stood out to me. Not only did he give up 0 sacks like he usually does, but he gave up just 9 pressures total, and never let anyone hit Jalen Hurts. In that run to the Super Bowl, Hurts never had to worry about his right side. No one was getting through Lane.

But let's not forget what he went on to do in the playoffs. He had a tear in his abdomen, and never missed a snap in the 3 games. Yet he kept playing at a high level. He faced down Nick Bosa of the Niners, one of the better pass rushers in the league, and shut him down.

It's the perfect encapsulation of who Lane has been his entire time in Philly. Tough. He was playing with an injury that would have most of us on bed rest. Yet not only did he play, he played at the highest level an OT can play at.

It is hard to match what Reggie White did back in 1987. He had 21 sacks. Which is a great number for someone who plays a full season. But 1987 was a strike-shortened season. 1 week was canceled completely, and 3 more featured replacement players. So by the end of the season, White had played just 12 games.

12 games. He got 21 sacks in 12 games. In a 16-game season, that would be 28 sacks. The record is 22.5 by Michael Strahan, and he did that in 16 games. TJ Watt recently tied that record, and he did so in 15 games. White had several fewer games and nearly matched what those 2 did. Oh, and he also played great run defense, forced 4 fumbles, and scored a 70-yard TD.

When I originally wrote this listicle before the playoffs, I put Reggie at 1. But after the Eagles won the Super Bowl, it fell to 2.

The 2000-yard regular season was enough to make the case to put him at 1. When I wrote this listicle back in early January, I originally put him at 2 behind Reggie White. But his performance in the playoffs lifted it to 1. Yea he didn't do much in the Super Bowl, but Saquon is the reason he got there.

2 big runs in the game vs the Rams. 3 TDS, including a long one on the first play of the game, vs the Commanders. He went on to break Terrel Davis' record for rushing yards in a full season. He could have broken Eric Dickerson's record had he played the final week, but he had bigger things on his mind.

Not only was it a legendary season, one of the best ever by a RB, but it also ended in a parade. For that reason, Saquon takes 1st place. Oh and he also did this, which is one of the craziest things I have ever seen on a Football field.