Super Bowl 2023: How did the Eagles rebuild so fast after their 2017 championship?

PHOENIX — The Philadelphia Eagles won a Super Bowl, but that feels like a lifetime ago.

The NFL has sped up to the point that five years is a lifetime. Maybe two. There are some key members of the 2017 Eagles on the current NFC championship team, but much has changed.

Doug Pederson was the head coach then. Nick Foles was the quarterback. Every Eagles player who scored a touchdown in that Super Bowl against the New England Patriots — Alshon Jeffery, LeGarrette Blount, Foles, Corey Clement and Zach Ertz — is no longer on the roster.

Teams aren't supposed to turn over this quickly and build another Super Bowl roster right away. The Eagles are the rare club to win a Super Bowl and then get right back with a different cast. In fact, they're the only team in history to win a Super Bowl and then make it back within five years with a different starting quarterback and head coach.

What the Eagles have done is special.

"In the offseason, as you saw [general manager] Howie [Roseman] continuing to add pieces to the roster, it started looking more and more like the real thing," Reddick said. "Like we had a chance to get to the Super Bowl. And we did. Here we are."

Roseman has received most of the credit for the fast reload. Many of his moves were grand slams.

Eagles fall after championship

The first thing to look at is how the Eagles handled the two biggest positions, head coach and quarterback.

Things went south fast with Pederson. Two straight 9-7 seasons led to a 4-11-1 debacle in 2020. There was a reported power struggle, disagreements about assistants and general dissatisfaction from team owner Jeffrey Lurie. The Eagles moved on, which was shocking so soon after a historic Super Bowl title. They hired Nick Sirianni, a first-time head coach who was offensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts. Sirianni bombed his introductory media conference, showing how little that means. Since then, he has been fantastic, a bold and innovative coach whose personality is the exact fit for the roster.

"I think Coach Sirianni brings a ton of enthusiasm to the game," Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said. "He loves the game."

The next big move was Hurts. He was a controversial second-round draft pick. The Eagles already had Carson Wentz. The Hurts pick looked like a waste. After the selection, Roseman talked about the Eagles developing quarterbacks, but a second-round pick seemed too valuable for that.

"As we looked at where we were on the board and what was the thing that we believed in the most and more the kind of people we believed in the most, Jalen stood out in all those regards," Roseman said about the pick in 2020, via NBC Sports Philadelphia.

Wentz got hurt again that season, and the next offseason, the Eagles made the bold move to admit a mistake with his extension and trade him. They ate $33.8 million on the salary cap due to the trade, the largest dead cap hit in NFL history at the time.

That affected the short-term ability to build. But Roseman hit just about every green light in putting together the 2022 roster.

Eagles' rebuild is a success

The Eagles have missed on a lot of draft picks. Every team does. They've gotten little from this season's class, though the veteran depth on the roster could be a reason for that.

But the Eagles have nailed a few key picks. Hurts was the biggest hit. They also had a great 2018 draft, in which they didn't have a first- or third-round pick but produced several key players (tight end Dallas Goedert, cornerback Avonte Maddox, defensive end Josh Sweat and offensive tackle Jordan Mailata all play big roles). Miles Sanders was a key second-round pick in 2020. DeVonta Smith was a great pick in the first round of 2021, followed by starting lineman Landon Dickerson in the second round and valuable backup running back Kenneth Gainwell in the fifth. The Eagles also got lucky in that veterans such as defensive linemen Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham and offensive linemen Lane Johnson and Jason Kelce aged gracefully.

Then came the trades. The Eagles pulled off some crucial trades. They stole cornerback Darius Slay from the Detroit Lions for a third- and fifth-round pick, due to then-Lions coach Matt Patricia's tantrum over Slay. The Eagles took advantage when the Tennessee Titans misread the receiver market and traded a first- and third-round pick for A.J. Brown, one of the best receivers in the NFL. They also somehow got safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and a seventh-round pick from the New Orleans Saints for fifth- and sixth-round picks. The Eagles likely wouldn't be in the Super Bowl without those three players.

Then with Wentz's cap hit off the books, the Eagles made smart free-agent moves such as signing defensive end Haason Reddick and cornerback James Bradberry. Suddenly the Eagles had a dynamite roster.

"I kind of knew in camp we had a pretty good squad," defensive tackle Javon Hargrave said. "You could tell we brought some dogs in. They've helped us out."

The Eagles were bold when they had to be (especially with changes at head coach and quarterback), made shrewd trades, had enough good draft picks to fill out the depth and hit big on a few free agents, which was possible because Hurts is still on his rookie deal.

That's how you can go from Super Bowl title to 4-11-1 and back to a Super Bowl in five years.

"It comes down to the management, the guys upstairs, the personnel department," right tackle Lane Johnson said. "I think they know the pedigree on what they're looking for, the type of team."