There is a lot to be said for that, but clearly there are other factors involved. Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman has built a roster made from excellent draft and post-NFL Draft strategy, smart additions via free agency, great fits acquired in trades with other NFL teams, and the commitment from the franchise to keep a large core of players intact through multiple contracts.
Roseman’s talent acquisitions also marry with what the coaching staff – and there have been two of them in the last eight years, Doug Pederson in the first wave and now Nick Sirianni – looks for in players. That’s not an easy thing to connect, but Roseman has found the right formula.
Along with that, the Eagles have built an enviable player development program, have matched their performance staff with their medical and athletic training philosophies and continue to win football games, capture NFC East titles, and have good things happen in the playoffs.
If you really want to trace the origins of the current run of success, look back to 2016 and the trade of quarterback Sam Bradford to Minnesota. The Eagles acquired a first-round draft pick (used to select defensive end Derek Barnett) and a fourth-round selection (used in a trade in 2017 to acquire running back Jay Ajayi), and it was a deal that Roseman later referred to as “franchise changing.”
This is what Roseman had to say when the trade was made, a deal that also opened up salary-cap space that the Eagles used to sign wide receiver Alshon Jeffery: “Well the only circumstance that changed was this trade offer from the Vikings. This was not our blueprint; this was not part of the plan. But as we sit, we have to be flexible, and we have to be able to take advantage of opportunities that give us an opportunity to get where we want to be. Our organization has had a run of success at some point, but we are trying to get that trophy (Lombardi Trophy) and to do that, sometimes you’ve got to do things like this that aren’t so easy to do the week before the season starts.”
The move paid off, of course, as the Eagles won Super Bowl LII a season later as Carson Wentz had a Most Valuable Player-level season prior to his injury, Ajayi joined the team in the middle of the year and had a positive impact down the stretch and in the playoffs, and Jeffery became a go-to target in the passing game.
“I think in roster building, you’re not going to be perfect,” Roseman said in 2024. “You’re going to make mistakes. The most important thing we’ve got to do is have a vision for how we want it to look. We’ve got to have a process that we want to have. Sometimes you can have a vision, have a process, and the result is not what you want. So you’ve got to make sure that you’re not overreacting to a result that maybe just kind of was an aberration in the moment, and then you’ve got to look at maybe is the process right.”