The Philadelphia Eagles hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in February, pulverizing the back-to-back champion Kansas City Chiefs. Philly enters 2025 keenly aware that the Super Bowl performance guarantees nothing moving forward.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman told Adam Schein on Thursday on SiriusXM's Mad Dog Sports Radio that his club is preparing to be the hunted.
"We understand that 2025 is a new year, and we haven't won a game yet," Roseman said. "In 2025, we're going to have to do our best and work our hardest to have the kind of season that we're looking for, and nothing in the past is going to guarantee future success."
The Eagles won their first Super Bowl in 2017, knocking off the dynastic New England Patriots. Philly couldn't replicate the success of that club, going 9-7 each of the next two years and quickly bowing out of the postseason before sinking to 4-11-1 in Doug Pederson's final season.
The 2025 version of Philly Super Bowl winners is vastly different than that initial iteration. For one, there is stability under center with Jalen Hurts. The Super Bowl MVP is the clubhouse's clear leader, and his contract ensures he's going nowhere soon.
Roseman also points out that this team is much younger, particularly on defense, with a core that can grow together. He also boasted about the pieces he'll be able to add in the coming years to sustain success.
"You've got to take the lessons we learned from that 2017 team and what we did there and this is a different group for sure, but also, you know, we're building it a little bit differently," the GM said. "This is a young team. I think we have two players projected on our defense that are over 25 years old. We're extremely young, our core guys, they're all in their twenties, so this isn't like we're just putting the band back together to make one last run, like we feel like we've got an opportunity here to continue to build our core players and keep our core guys together. We've got a lot of picks next year already, expecting comp picks, and we've made two trades to get picks from other teams, so we're looking at a minimum of 12 picks next year, which is huge for us to keep supplementing."
We won't know until next year exactly how many picks Roseman will have at his disposal, but he's currently projected to add three compensatory selections, including a third-rounder for losing big-money free agent Milton Williams to the Patriots. With the way the Eagles GM has been able to snipe productive players that the rest of the league has allowed to fall during the draft -- doing so again this year with linebacker Jihaad Campbell at No. 31 overall -- the ability to replenish the stock with playmakers will keep Philly in contention for years to come.
Roseman has built a talented and sustainable roster. That starts with Hurts and trickles down. Injuries and other concerns will have their say in whether Philly can repeat as Lombardi lifters, but even after losing key pieces on defense, on paper, they remain the cream of the crop.
