PHILADELPHIA – The title defense of the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles died Sunday, much like another Jalen Hurts pass on a blustery and dark South Philly night.
Yet even if that outcome didn’t necessarily seem like an inevitable conclusion, a mandate for this team to shine a spotlight on its issues was always going to be unavoidable.
“Anytime you lose − anytime you don’t perform the way you want to as coaches and players − yeah, you’re frustrated,” head coach Nick Sirianni said following his team’s 23-19 ouster by the San Francisco 49ers.
“What I said to the guys is, ‘Adversity shapes you to who you are if you allow it to.’ There’s a lot to be thankful for, but you’ve got to use this adversity to shape you and that’s for everybody in that locker room: myself, the coaches, the players. Let the pain shape you to what you want to be, and we will use this like we used it at the end of ’22, ’23 because all that was necessary for ’24.
“We’ll see what the future holds.”
First, a word on the recent past.
Whatever you might think of Sirianni – and he can be overtly brash, especially on game days – he’s also calculating, plugged into his team and highly respected and generally loved by his players. The Eagles have made the playoffs in all five of his seasons, reaching Super Bowls 57 and 59. Sunday’s defeat was Sirianni’s first at home in the postseason after a 5-0 start. His team is obviously talented and brilliantly constructed. He’s a coach almost any organization would – or certainly should – covet.
Yet he’s aware a reckoning is at hand, similar to the 2023 campaign’s aftermath – when the Eagles lost six of their final seven games following a 10-1 start. (However I’ve talked to enough players who don’t feel like the 2025 team’s “failure” was analogous to the ’23 squad’s collapse.)
So what are the next steps? Here are six suggestions the Eagles should consider if they want to return to the Super Sunday stage and chase a third Lombardi Trophy sooner than later:
1. Find a veteran offensive coordinator
Not a hot take, but one that’s been out of the oven for months − swirling about embattled play-caller Kevin Patullo, a lightning rod for fans and the unsparing ecosystem that is the City of Brotherly Love. His likely demise was again a popular line of questioning Sunday night – to the point where the team’s public relations staff tried to shut it down in the locker room at one point.
“I think it’s tough to single out one individual, especially in a moment like this. We all got to improve and that’s how I look at everything that we go through,” said Hurts.
It’s typical for players to defend their coaches and vice versa. But the numbers speak for themselves. A star-studded attack ranked 24th overall in 2025 and 19th in points scored after being in the top 10 in both categories the previous season, when the Eagles were at their best in the playoffs. The Eagles averaged 36.3 points and 361 yards in four postseason games last year. Aside from their 19 points against the Niners, they had 307 yards. Overall, Philly averaged 5.2 yards per play this season, nearly a half-yard fewer year over year. Equally concerning was the significantly reduced production of players like Hurts, tailback Saquon Barkley − he ran for the most yards ever in a season (regular and postseason combined) in 2024 − and wideout A.J. Brown.
Philly endured a similar falloff in 2023, internally promoted coordinator Brian Johnson failing to meet the bar future Indianapolis Colts coach Shane Steichen set in 2022. Patullo, Philly’s passing game coordinator the previous four seasons, ran into a comparable challenge after predecessor Kellen Moore took the New Orleans Saints’ head job after Super Bowl 59.
Sirianni has to find the right fit for his roster’s talent – recently fired Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, for example, probably isn’t the appropriate choice given his schemes and philosophy – if the unit is to revert to being more than the sum of its expensive parts.
“There will be time to evaluate everybody’s performance,” said Sirianni.
“Right now, I feel for all our guys in the locker room, all the players, all the coaches, the front office, everybody that works so hard, the fans that come out and support us, Mr. (owner Jeffrey) Lurie. I feel for all of us, all of them, and there’ll be time to evaluate everything coming up.”
2. Maximize Jalen Hurts’ talents
It’s a corollary to Step 1, but whoever’s designing the offense in 2026 must resource Hurts more effectively. He typically plays his best in big games, has off-the-charts intangibles and doesn’t seem to feel pressure – at least the figurative variety.
But Sunday night was a reminder that Hurts, who led one fourth-quarter comeback all season, is generally much more effective playing from ahead − and he’s quite capable of building a lead. Utilizing his running back-adjacent skills is one way to accomplish that – not only because he’s such an effective runner, but the threat of him bolting the pocket for chunks of real estate is a good idea on merit and restricts how much attention a defense can devote to players like Barkley and Brown … to say nothing of the larger downfield passing windows it opens for the sometimes scattershot distributor.
Yet Hurts’ 105 carries this season were essentially two-thirds of his typical run-game utilization from the previous three seasons. His eight TD runs were his fewest since his 2020 rookie year, when he started four games.
“At the end of the day, we didn’t create enough explosives,” Sirianni said, an assessment of the loss to San Francisco – though also a microcosm of the season.
“They made more plays than we did. They coached better than we did, and that’s why they won.”
Hurts, the Super Bowl 59 MVP, is never going to be the next Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes from a holistic standpoint. Also, he doesn’t need to be if the Eagles can revert to patterning an approach that allows him to do what he does best and not tie one arm (or leg, as the case may be) behind his back.
3. Let A.J. Brown go
A team captain, he’s obviously a respected locker room figure. Sirianni likes him, too, though couldn’t resist barking at him on the sideline Sunday. And, when things are going well, Brown is one of the most dominant receivers in the league – certainly not an easily replaceable or dispensable asset.
Brown was also a perpetual distraction this season – to the point that Lurie had to tell him to shut up in November after Brown’s fusillade of complaints, essentially constant dissatisfaction with his production. (Notably, the Eagles were 2-3 when Brown had 100 or more receiving yards this season, and 6-2 when he had fewer than 50.) He also had a crucial drop against the 49ers, finishing with three catches for 25 yards – and on a night when Philly most definitely needed more from him.
Brown has $29 million coming to him in 2026, the final guarantees on a contract that will run through the 2029 season. That means, from a salary cap perspective, it would be tough to trade him – particularly before June 1 – as a deal would essentially wipe out GM Howie Roseman’s current $20 million surplus, per Over The Cap, for his free-agent budget. Yet running it back with Brown doesn’t seem sustainable anymore. Send him to New England for a reunion with his first NFL coach, Mike Vrabel, and recoup what should be a sizable return for a guy who’s unquestionably elite from a football perspective.
4. Replenish the offensive line
No one has to twist Roseman’s arm to pick young blockers in the draft. Yet he also hasn’t taken one in the first two rounds since 2022, when C Cam Jurgens arrived late in Round 2. RT Lane Johnson, who deserves to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer upon retirement, is going to be 36 this spring. His absence this season was notable, a bum foot preventing him from playing Sunday as injuries limited him to 10 starts, his fewest since 2020. The unit at large also missed Mekhi Becton, who was a revelation at right guard in 2024 – his lone season in Philly – before the Los Angeles Chargers scooped him up with a big offer in free agency. If nothing else, more quality, young depth seems like a prerequisite here.
5. Plan for life without the ‘Tush Push’
This is a corollary to Step 4. But not only were the Eagles less effective at running their once-automatic signature play, LT Jordan Mailata told me a few weeks ago the team doesn’t even expect it will remain legal in 2026 after NFL owners granted it a stay of execution last spring. Maybe that’s ultimately for the best. It’s a physically demanding tactic and one that seemed to suffer without Becton and Johnson collapsing the left side of a defensive front. Given Hurts’ strength as a runner – to say nothing of Barkley’s presence or the creative deployment of highly effective TE Dallas Goedert this season – the Eagles should be fine in short-yardage situations regardless. Still, Sirianni and Co. may have to adjust their philosophical thinking given the push play so often gave Philly the luxury of choosing among a wide array of options on third-and-short ahead of a near-inevitable conversion on fourth down.
6. Address typical offseason considerations
As noted, Roseman currently has $20 million to play with and must assess whether or not to re-sign Goedert, LB Nakobe Dean and/or S Reed Blankenship. OLB Jaelan Phillips, a midseason trade deadline acquisition, will likely be too expensive to retain, even for master capologist like Roseman. And while Phillips did come at the price of a third-round pick, Roseman had one to burn after obtaining a Round 3 choice in 2024 for OLB Haason Reddick in what turned out to be a fleecing of the New York Jets. Defensive line depth is becoming an intermediate concern with Jordan Davis and Moro Ojomo heading into a contract year.
It’s certainly a lot to address, but the Eagles know they need to take their medicine – and few organizations are as adroit as adapting on the fly (or laying the groundwork to do so) as expertly as Roseman does.
“(A)t the end of the day, there were a lot of elements (when) you end up with a loss, and we haven’t had this feeling of ending our season since 2023 with the loss,” said Sirianni.
“That’s why it hurts because it’s been a while. But yeah, at the end of the day, we need to find ways to be more explosive.”
Time to light that fuse.
