By Scott Kacsmar
The Philadelphia Eagles were on the brink of greatness in 2022, but they came up just short against the Kansas City Chiefs and former head coach Andy Reid in Super Bowl 57. Quarterback Jalen Hurts also finished as MVP runner-up to Patrick Mahomes, and Hurts very well could have been Super Bowl MVP had he not fumbled for a touchdown return in that game.
The path back to the big game has always been difficult for the Super Bowl loser. But the Eagles are favored to win it all over every team but the Chiefs, they are favored to win the NFC again (+330 at FanDuel), and their win total (11.5) is as high as any team in the league this year.
But the first thing the Eagles need to do is win the NFC East again. It is the only division in the NFL without a repeat champion since 2004 when the Eagles last did it (2001-04).
We look back at their Super Bowl season that led them to the top of the NFC, the changes in the offseason such as losing both coordinators, the main area they must fix in 2023, and what the best bets are to place on the Eagles in an underwhelming NFC.
2022 Season Recap: One Drive Short
The Eagles were coming off a middling playoff season in 2021 where rookie coach Nick Sirianni saw some growth from Jalen Hurts in his first full year as a starter. But good teams had no problem beating the Eagles, and they were not the favorites in the division going into 2022.
But the draft-day trade for wide receiver A.J. Brown from the Titans proved to be a fantastic move as Brown had 10 catches for 155 yards in his team debut in a 38-35 win in Detroit. Brown would finish the season with 1,496 yards and 11 touchdowns, a monster year for Hurts’ new No. 1 receiver who complimented the speed of DeVonta Smith with his strength so well.
With a deeper receiving corps, Hurts was able to flourish and take full control of the offense. Not only did he improve his passing from 2021, but he ran with the ball 200 times and scored 18 rushing touchdowns when including the playoffs. Both marks are NFL records for a quarterback in one season.
A defining play for the 2022 Eagles was the quarterback push-sneak or the Tush Push. It is the play where Hurts would get help from a teammate (or two) with a push from behind on the sneak. They took the most unstoppable play in the playbook and made it even more dominant, converting 29-of-32 opportunities in 2022. The NFL even considered outlawing it in the offseason, but the Tush Push is still going to be allowed in the 2023 season.
It is unclear when Hurts experienced his shoulder injury that threatened to end his season, but it must have happened during a Week 15 win over Chicago. Hurts would miss the next two games, and despite a spirited effort from Gardner Minshew in Dallas on Christmas Eve, the Eagles lost both games without Hurts. Fortunately, he was able to return in Week 18 to face the Giants, who were playing their backups, and the Eagles won to finish 14-3 and clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
In addition to thriving on offense, the Eagles had a very good defense that produced 70 sacks, the most by any defense in the NFL since the 1989 Vikings (71). Haason Reddick proved to be another valuable signing as he had a career-high 16 sacks. The pass rush helped the secondary, which featured a great corner pairing in Darius Slay and veteran addition James Bradberry. Coming over from New Orleans, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson tied for the league lead with 6 interceptions in his first (and only) season with the team. The Eagles did a fantastic job with their new additions last year.
Beyond adding Brown and upgrading the defense, the schedule was another reason to really like the Eagles going into 2022. In starting 11-1, the Eagles faced just three teams that went on to make the playoffs, and one of those was Dallas with Cooper Rush at quarterback instead of Dak Prescott.
The Eagles were the NFL’s last unbeaten team at 8-0 before a shocking loss to the Commanders at home on a Monday night when the Eagles were sloppy and had 4 turnovers. They would also turn the ball over 4 times in Dallas without Hurts in Week 16, a 40-34 loss that was still winnable had the defense not allowed a 3rd-and-30 conversion in the fourth quarter.
Turnovers were the only way to beat the Eagles in 2022 and asking a defense to produce 4 of them is tough business. Minshew threw a big pick-six in the fourth quarter of the New Orleans loss, and of course, the Eagles’ only turnover in Super Bowl 57 was a huge one when Hurts had an unforced error with a fumble that was returned for a big touchdown in the first half.
But the Eagles looked like the best team in the NFC all year long. They cruised to 8-0 by jumping all over teams before halftime and cruising in the second half. This cooled down in the second half, but in the playoffs, the Eagles were dominant in easy wins over the Giants and 49ers. It helped that the 49ers lacked a healthy quarterback with a working arm for much of that NFC Championship Game, but the Eagles were a worthy favorite in the Super Bowl against Kansas City.
Unfortunately, Patrick Mahomes is just a different beast, and a double-digit deficit does not phase him. The Eagles’ front-running ways came back to haunt them as they finished 2022 with a plus-126 scoring differential in the second quarter compared to a plus-4 scoring differential in the other quarters combined.
Even in the Super Bowl, the Eagles were +10 in the second quarter and -13 in the other quarters. The Chiefs scored on that big fumble return, they caused the Eagles to blow some coverages for easy touchdowns as the pass rush slipped all night on a poor field. The final kicker was a questionable third-down penalty on the Philadelphia defense that allowed the Chiefs to run most of the clock down to kick a go-ahead field goal, not leaving Hurts enough time to answer in the 38-35 loss.
The 35 points scored by the Eagles were the most in Super Bowl history for a losing team, but it was not enough to topple Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Offseason Review
The Eagles are returning the vast majority of what was one of the best and most balanced rosters in the league last year. The biggest changes may be in the coaching staff after offensive coordinator Shane Steichen (Colts) and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon (Cardinals) both left for head coaching jobs.
Philadelphia should be able to withstand these changes. Steichen did a nice job in developing Hurts the last two years, but new coordinator Brian Johnson has been the quarterbacks’ coach since 2021, so he is an in-house promotion who knows what this team wants to be offensively.
Despite all those sacks last year, the Eagles had some leaky games on defense, getting shredded on third downs in losses to the Commanders, Cowboys, and Chiefs. The Eagles were not top 5 in points allowed on defense. Taking over for Gannon is Sean Desai, who coordinated the Bears to middling results in 2021, and he helped with Pete Carroll’s defense in Seattle last year.
It is all but certain that the Eagles will have fewer sacks this year, and they also lost one of their top pass rushers in Javon Hargrave (49ers), who had 11 sacks. But there is still outstanding pass-rushing talent here, and the Eagles managed to add even more of it in the first round of the draft with the selections of Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith.
Carter was considered to be the best defender in the draft by some analysts, but there are off-field issues about his motivation and character. But if he can learn from Fletcher Cox and company, he can be a huge asset right away. Smith can also play behind Reddick and be part of that great rotation in the front seven. The secondary returns Slay and Bradberry, and safety Terrell Edmunds will look to show more than he did after a handful of seasons in Pittsburgh.
While the Eagles let running back Miles Sanders go, they added D’Andre Swift (Lions) and Rashaad Penny (Seahawks), two talented backs who struggle to stay healthy. They could add more receiving impact than Sanders provided, at least. They also still have Kenneth Gainwell and Boston Scott, the Giant Killer. The backfield should be fine regardless of who is carrying the ball.
It was always going to be impossible for the Eagles to add more talent to the team than they did last offseason, but they were able to keep their core and add great pass-rushing potential for the long term.
This Year’s Area of Interest: Beating the Best Quarterbacks
If you look at the Eagles last year, there really was no overarching weakness to the team that would deny them from winning a championship. They could play offense and defense at a championship level, they could run and pass, they had a great pass rush, and they knew how to control games and were not afraid to take risks.
But if there is something we can point to about the Eagles that we have yet to see them prove in the Jalen Hurts era, it would be this fact we laid out in our divisional round preview last season.
Hurts has never led the Eagles to a win over a team we knew was good with a good starting quarterback available for the game. It did not happen in 2020, 2021, or 2022. In 2021, the Eagles were actually 0-7 vs. playoff teams.
But wait, this sounds impossible when the 2022 Eagles finished 9-2 against teams that finished with a winning record, one of the best records ever for one season. However, as we explained in our Super Bowl coverage, that record is an incredible mixture of circumstances with catching teams at the right time, and that does not just mean playing Kirk Cousins on a Monday night.
Last year, teams like the Lions, Jaguars, and Steelers all started 2-6 before finishing 9-8, which is only now a possibility with the 17-game season. The Eagles played those teams early when they were not playing well at all. They also played the Giants late (three times) when they were not playing as well, and Daniel Jones is still not a proven franchise quarterback.
When the Eagles played Dallas with Cooper Rush, they won easily and confused the inexperienced backup. But when they played Dak Prescott in the rematch, they had 40 points dropped on them as Prescott rarely missed that day. Obviously, catching the 49ers with Brock Purdy turned out to be a dud in the NFC Championship Game after Purdy injured his elbow just 4 plays into his performance.
This is why Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl was going to be the ultimate test, and the Eagles did not pass it. Mahomes was named Super Bowl MVP after completing 21-of-27 passes for 182 yards and 3 touchdowns on a high-ankle sprain. He also ran for 44 yards with a 26-yard run being the key play on his game-winning field goal drive.
Hurts is 15-2 when he leads the Eagles to 27-plus points, but both losses are to Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Hurts has started 38 games and the data backs this up:
- Hurts is 4-9 vs. quarterbacks ranked in the top 15 in QBR that season.
- Hurts is 0-7 vs. quarterbacks ranked in the top 15 in QBR for teams with 10+ wins.
- Hurts is 14-2 vs. quarterbacks ranked in the bottom half of QBR for that season.
- Hurts is 7-2 vs. backup quarterbacks who did not have enough plays to qualify for QBR ranking.
The 0-7 speaks to what we were talking about above with never beating a good quarterback on a good team. But this is far from a criticism of only Hurts and the offense. The defense has to take a huge part of the responsibility for why this team does not step up in these games, which includes an 0-2 record against Mahomes’ Chiefs, 0-2 against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers, and a 41-21 loss to Prescott’s Cowboys in 2021.
In those 7 games, the Eagles allowed an average of 32.9 points per game, and all 7 opposing quarterbacks completed at least 73% of their passes against the Eagles’ defense.
To win a Super Bowl, you almost certainly have to beat a good team with a good quarterback along the way. Maybe the NFC will not provide that much of a challenge to these Eagles in that regard, but the chances of Hurts dodging more games against Prescott is unlikely, and the same can be said about the rematch with the 49ers.
The Eagles have to play the Chiefs (Mahomes rematch) and Bills (Josh Allen) in back-to-back weeks out of the bye in November. Those should be challenges, and those could be Super Bowl previews as it is likely the Eagles would face an AFC team like that should they return to the Super Bowl. If not those teams, then someone like the Bengals (Joe Burrow), Ravens (Lamar Jackson), Jets (Aaron Rodgers), or the Jaguars (Trevor Lawrence) or Dolphins (Tua Tagovailoa) prove last year was no fluke.
Hurts has an NFC set up for him to dominate this year, but as far as signature wins over another hot quarterback go, he still does not have one in his career. That needs to change this season if the Eagles want to finish the job.
Best Bets for the 2023 Eagles
The 17-game season throws off the historical data, but it is a fact that no team has ever won 14 games and won more the following season. Only the 1989-90 49ers and 2003-04 Patriots were able to match 14-2 records in back-to-back years.
The schedule kind of sets up well again for another 8-0 start heading into November and the first Dallas matchup, though you never know how good the Jets (Week 6) will be playing by then with Aaron Rodgers.
I would still fade the over/under 11.5 wins for the Eagles in favor of them winning the NFC East, breaking that longest active drought of not having a repeat champion. The Giants still look mediocre, the Commanders have a messy quarterback situation, and Dallas remains a talented but flawed team that is fully capable of beating itself in a big game.
The oddsmakers see that big 3 in the NFC (Eagles, Cowboys, 49ers) competing for the Super Bowl again, and the Eagles should still be the best of the bunch thanks to having consistency at coach and quarterback to go along with a great pass rush. But if the Eagles can get even more stops in lieu of sacks this year and improve their scoring defense ranking, they could be a more complete team than they were a year ago.
Hurts staying healthy gives you some pause as they cannot keep running him 200 times a year, but Marcus Mariota was a good backup quarterback signing this year as someone with mobility and starting experience. A team like the 49ers got so far last year with Mr. Irrelevant (Brock Purdy) in the draft, but the Eagles remain the team to beat in the NFC.
In the 16-game era, only the Denver Broncos (1986-87), Buffalo Bills (1990-93), and New England Patriots (2017-18) have returned to the Super Bowl after losing it the previous year. That means one time in the salary cap era.
But the Eagles still have room to grow and the right stuff to get it done, so they are worthy of betting on to win the NFC once again.
NFL Pick: Philadelphia Eagles to win 2023 NFC East (-110 at BetMGM)
NFL Pick: Philadelphia Eagles to win 2023 NFC (+350 at DraftKings)
