Eagles Super Bowl LIX Preview: Undervalued Players Bring It
Every summer, the NFL forces one of its 32 teams to feature on the HBO series “Hard Knocks.” That is, for a few long months halfway through the calendar year, a TV crew follows and documents all of an organization’s escapades. Not just any team can appear on the show, though. To qualify, a team needs to meet three key criteria: They must not have a new head coach, they must not have made the playoffs in the previous two seasons, and they must not have been featured on the show in the past 10 years. In other words, teams featured on “Hard Knocks” are usually not abysmal; more often, they’re just lousy. It’s strange, then, that a story which, at the least, ultimately culminates in a Super Bowl appearance would most fittingly begin on “Hard Knocks.” Nonetheless, that is where I, and many others, chose to begin the story of the 2024-25 Philadelphia Eagles.
The lowly New York Giants were featured on “Hard Knocks” this year. For those who didn’t watch “Hard Knocks,” don’t watch football, or missed the avalanche of clips surrounding the event, one of this season’s main storylines revolved around the free agency of former number two overall pick Saquon Barkley. Since joining the Giants in 2018, Barkley, a running back, had shown flashes of brilliance, mixed in with so-so production and numerous nagging injuries. Going into the 2024-25 season, Barkley was set to become an unrestricted free agent. The Giants had a choice: franchise tag Barkley (sign him to a one-year contract with a salary determined by the average of the top-paid players at his position) or let him test his value in free agency and, in the process, risk losing him for nothing. The Giants, seeing little value in his position, chose the latter. As a result, their opportunistic division rival, the Eagles, swooped in and stole Barkley, signing him to a three-year, $37 million contract.
The figure was pricey for a running back, a slight risk, but it is one that paid off tremendously for the Eagles this season. In 17 games of play, Barkley accumulated 2005 yards from scrimmage, the eighth-highest total in history, all while leading the Eagles to a 14-3 regular season record. The figure beat his personal best by nearly 700 yards and led the entire NFL by a fair margin. Barkley’s production is so good that, in many ways, the Eagles are underpaying him. Barkley has continued to dominate throughout the postseason and is, in large part, the reason the Eagles are in the Super Bowl. In playoff wins against the Green Bay Packers, the Los Angeles Chargers, and the Washington Commanders, Barkley rushed for a combined 442 yards, already the seventh-highest total in NFL playoff history.
You see, Barkley is part of a larger trend of the Eagles maximizing positional value. The Eagles have a solidified starter at virtually every position on the field, including two players nominated for Defensive Rookie of the Year, cornerbacks Cooper Dejean and Quinyon Mitchell, one player nominated for Defensive Player of the Year, linebacker Zack Baun, and one man nominated for Most Valuable Player — Barkley. Dejean and Mitchell are both on rookie deals that, combined, cost the Eagles less than $10 million annually, while star linebacker Zack Baun makes less than $4 million annually.
Absurd positional value lurks everywhere you look. Starting center Cam Jurgens makes less than $2 million a year on his rookie contract, while star defensive tackle Jalen Carter makes less than $6 million on his rookie deal. Moreover, when the Eagles decide to pay players, they often get it right. This includes high-salaried offensive tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata, as well as wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, all of whose production, availability, and consistency match those at the very top of their position.
The biggest question mark for the Eagles, then, is quarterback Jalen Hurts. It is no secret that Hurts is an on-and-off kind of player. With the help of Saquon Barkley, Hurts has done just enough to keep the Eagles rolling, including a dominant 246-yard passing performance against the Commanders in the NFC championship game. If the Eagles want to win the Super Bowl, they need Hurts to perform. As Allen Lichtman might say, Hurts holds the keys. One of those keys includes picking up the blitz against the Kansas City Chiefs’ Steve Spagnola defense, a task Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen repeatedly failed to accomplish in his loss to the Chiefs two weeks ago. Spagnola is known for playing with blitz formations and giving teams a wide variety of looks; it is up to Hurts and his film study to identify these formations and adjust.
Further, Hurts must air the ball out. After throwing a career-high 15 interceptions last season, Hurts has been especially tentative about throwing the ball this season. When Hurts does throw well, the Eagles are virtually unstoppable. That is, there are simply not enough men on the field to adequately contain both Hurts and Barkley in the backfield while also shutting down Smith and Brown downfield. Hurts has thrown for more than 200 yards nine times this season; in those games, the Eagles are 9-0, winning by a combined score of 262-163. It is clear, then, that if Hurts throws for more than 200 yards in the Super Bowl, the Eagles have a pretty good chance of winning.
If that’s not enough, the Eagles have the number one defense in football, holding opposing teams to 278.5 yards of total offense on average throughout the regular season. If the Eagles want to win, they need to prevent Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes from getting the ball out early and effectively guard Andy Reid’s stack patterns and mesh variations. To guard the stack patterns, the Eagles must press at the line of scrimmage and, in doing so, reroute the receivers, either causing them to run into each other or mess up the timing of the play entirely. By extension, the responsibility of guarding star tight end Travis Kelce on shallow routes will likely fall on Zack Baun and safeties Reed Blankenship and C.J. Gardner-Johnson. If the Eagles want to win, rookies Dejean and Mitchell must be physical upfront, while Blankenship, Gardner-Johnson, and Baun must contain. All of these scheme challenges stand in the way of Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who is 0-8 vs. Patrick Mahomes.
Ultimately, whether the Eagles win or lose this weekend, it is clear that, for them, this season has been nothing short of a resounding success. Philly fans surely remember the many months Hurts used an image of himself walking off the field after losing to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII as his lock screen. As I see it, if silly, gratuitous motivational gestures mean anything, then the Eagles will win this weekend — and Hurts will have a new lock screen.