Philadelphia Eagles’ Rebuild Success Story
By Sophie Mae on Feb 17, 2025
The Philadelphia Eagles’ latest Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs was nothing short of stunning. Most of the talk this year was surrounding the Chiefs potentially three-peating for the first time in league history, while in the NFC it revolved particularly around the Detroit Lions. In the end, the last team to be standing in New Orleans at Super Bowl LIX was the Eagles.
The game itself was a dominant display on both sides of the ball but the most impressive performance came from the Eagles’ defense. Philly’s secondary kept all of Kansas City’s receivers in check and rookie corner Cooper DeJean returned his first career interception for a touchdown. The linebackers played a solid game but the talk of the town was the 4-man D-Line which put an enormous amount of pressure on Patrick Mahomes throughout the game.
Mahomes was sacked 6 times and had very little time to find his receivers as the defensive linemen closed all running lanes.
On the other hand, the offense led by MVP Jalen Hurts played nearly a perfect game barring one interception. They put up points consistently and made sure the end result was never in doubt.
Eventually, Philly hoisted their second Lombardi Trophy in franchise history which brings us to the point at hand – how the Eagles rebuilt their team.
Eagles’ Success Following Super Bowl LII
Philadelphia’s first Championship came in Super Bowl LII when their backup quarterback Nick Foles led the team against the mighty New England Patriots in the 2017 NFL season. The Patriots were big favorites going into the game by 5.5 points, but the NFC Champions under Head Coach Doug Pederson were able to come through with a well-earned 41-33 victory.
Ever since then, the Eagles have been a perennial playoff team barring the dismal 2020 season. However, in 2022, Philadelphia yet again reached the Super Bowl but lost the game to the Chiefs by a marginal score of 38-35.
2023 End Of Season Debacle
Continuing to build momentum following their Super Bowl LVII loss to the Chiefs, Philadelphia raced ahead in the NFC with a 10-1 record by the end of week 11. Unfortunately, though, everything went downhill quickly after that and Philly ended up losing 5 of their last 6 regular season games. They went into the postseason with several problems particularly on defense as they demoted defensive coordinator Sean Desai near the end of the season which didn’t solve the problem.
In the Wild Card Round, the Eagles lost 32-9 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and by this time it was clear that Philadelphia was struggling mightily in their secondary.
The Eagles’ Rebuild
The Eagles’ rebuild started primarily on defense as their offense already had most of the pieces in place. In reality, even though Philadelphia had just come off a Super Bowl loss in 2023, they made it a point to bolster their defense in the 2023 NFL Draft going after multiple Georgia Bulldogs defenders.From the previous year, Philly had already added defensive tackle Jordan Davis with overall pick number 13 and third-round linebacker Nakobe Dean from Georgia.
In the 2023 draft, they went after defensive tackle Jalen Carter in round one, edge Nolan Smith in round two, and cornerback Kelee Ringo in round 4, all from Georgia. This was very significant because the Georgia Bulldogs had one of the best defenses in college football and the Eagles replicated as much as they could through their two draft classes.
In the 2024 draft, after realizing the major need to bolster their secondary, the Eagles drafted back-to-back cornerbacks in rounds 1 and 2 selecting Quinyon Mitchell from Toledo and Cooper DeJean from Iowa, both of whom had exceptional rookie campaigns.
On the offensive side of the ball, Philadelphia signed top running back free agent Saquon Barkley this past offseason and brought in new coordinators to run the offense and defense. The offense was given to Kellen Moore, former quarterback and offensive coordinator for the Cowboys and Chargers, while the defense was managed by the ever-so-experienced Vic Fangio.
This entire rebuild started after missing the playoffs in 2020. At that time Philly had drafted quarterback Jalen Hurts who took over starting duties in 2021. In 2021, they drafted wideout DeVonta Smith, and in 2022 they acquired wide receiver A.J. Brown as they started adding bits and pieces together to the offense. Within seven seasons after lifting their first Lombardi Trophy, the Eagles’ rebuild was complete as they took care of business this Sunday in New Orleans en route to their second Championship.
