-
Tim McManus
PHILADELPHIA — The 1970’s soul song «Lovely Day» by Bill Withers was playing inside the visitors’ locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium after the Philadelphia Eagles’ 28-22 win over the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 19, a soothing soundtrack for a group that had captured a moment’s peace.
Things were rocky around the Eagles after a two-game slide. First, a 21-17 loss to the Denver Broncos on Oct. 4 — just their second defeat in over a year. When reporters entered the home locker room afterward, it was silent and had a feel more normally associated with a postseason exit.
«I think this team forgot how to lose,» a reporter whispered.
Players sensed the energy was off during the ensuing short week leading up to Thursday’s game against the New York Giants, and sure enough, Philadelphia got rolled 34-17. Afterward, a player told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler that the feeling around the team was similar to 2023, when the Eagles collapsed down the stretch under their own weight.
Leadership understood the group was playing tight. So, the night before the game against the Vikings during a meeting at the team hotel, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni implored the players to have fun, play loose and not be a prisoner of their expectations. Jalen Hurts threw for three touchdowns and posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating the next day, and Philly performed with the kind of swagger that swung the vibe pendulum closer toward the championship run late in 2024.
«I think that should be kind of the theme for the rest of the season,» Saquon Barkley said as Withers crooned in the background. (A lovely dayyyyyyyy!) «Just go out there and be free.»
For all of the success — two Super Bowl appearances in the past three seasons, a 54-19 regular-season record in Hurts’ starts under Sirianni, a title in 2024 — satisfaction is often in short supply. That’s tied to the «double-edged sword» the Eagles wield, as Hurts once put it, as they grapple with embracing victory versus the disappointment in not playing to their full capabilities.
«What’s more important, winning or the standard?» Hurts asked late in 2023. «It’s a very manipulative thing to the mind sometimes.»
1 Related
It’s impossible to analyze the organization without considering its surrounding environment, a team staffer noted. The expectations have always been wildly high in Philly and have only swelled with the recent wave of success.
«[Expectations] just keep jumping, don’t it?» said the franchise’ longest-tenured player, Brandon Graham. «You think when you finally get one, it’s like, we can settle a little bit. Nah. [People] want to see it every year now.»
But the impossible standard that has long been held on the outside is being matched internally, some members of the team noted. It’s a bar that has been set by owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman, and lifted further by a host of highly competitive, world-class players, many of whom hail from college programs such as Alabama and Georgia, where winning isn’t always enough. That culture has seeped into the DNA of this franchise. When the team started 4-0, one player said, «You would have thought we lost four games already.»
That palpable demand for greatness fuels achievement and creates an underlying uneasiness that can feel foundation-rattling during what other teams might view as inevitable ebbs in a season. You can sense it in every cryptic A.J. Brown tweet — usually followed by him explaining he wants to be involved so the team can hit its full potential — or in the tone and body language of just about every star player whenever that potential isn’t realized. And you can feel the pull toward the center by key figures such as Sirianni and Barkley, serving as counterweights despite their perfectionist tendencies.
The Eagles set off on the unofficial second half of their season Monday night at the Green Bay Packers (8:15, ABC/ESPN), sitting at 6-2 and in position to make a strong defense of their championship. It will be a test in finding that balance between dogged pursuit and proper perspective, of playing free while chasing something that can never truly be caught.
«Being in the NFL is hard,» one current player who has been with multiple organizations over his career said. «Being an Eagle is harder.»
Mekhi Becton and Brett Toth, views the Eagles’ culture through the prism of the Bill Parcells-led New York Giants of the 1980s.
Herman represented former Giants standout linebacker Carl Banks and recalled a surprising conversation he had with arguably the best defensive player of all time, Lawrence Taylor, at a luncheon when Taylor was in the back end of his prime.
«Lawrence approached me and asked, did I think Parcells would cut him,» Herman said. «I said, ‘You’re Lawrence Taylor, there is no way Parcells is going to cut you.’ He was honest and anxious about it. I repeated it to Carl Banks. Why was he thinking this?
«Parcells created the [culture], and every player was concerned about winning but also about being cut. If you didn’t play to this standard that Bill required, you would be out of there. It is a similar situation in the overall quality and expectations to win in Philly.»
The difference, Herman said, is that those demands for excellence, both on and off the field, are originating from Lurie and Roseman.
Lurie purchased the team in 1994, and Roseman came aboard as an intern in 2000, climbing his way to GM by 2010. They worked alongside preeminent coach and culture-builder Andy Reid (1999-2012) and have felt both the wind and weight that come with working for such a passionate fanbase.
«Even when we were 10-1, everyone was walking around like their dog died.»
— a team source said
«We’ve had that for 25 years,» Lurie said at the recent fall league meetings in New York, via NFL.com. «No one has higher expectations than us. We’re very self-critical and disciplined, and we hope that brings success.»
A former high-ranking team employee explained that Lurie and Roseman aren’t deliberately creating a hot-seat atmosphere. They are bringing in people who are so concerned about doing their jobs at a high level that it can breed a sense of insecurity.
«Even though they’re superstars, even though they’re crushing it, it’s ‘Am I doing enough?’ That’s part of the culture,» the former employee said. «People want to do more there.»
IT’S NO SURPRISE the duo has honed in on players from college programs that share that value set. Lurie and Roseman have seven players who went to Alabama on the current roster, including two of their biggest stars in Hurts and receiver DeVonta Smith. It’s a similar deal with Georgia — there are seven Bulldogs on the team, including several key contributors such as Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith Jr., Nakobe Dean and Jordan Davis.
Sirianni preaches blocking out the noise and enjoying each win no matter what it looks like, but Dean said, «A lot of guys in the locker room, when we do get an ugly win, when we don’t play as well as we should, we look internally a lot.»
«That’s something that I credit Howie with, bringing guys in from Alabama and Georgia,» DeVonta Smith said, «guys that hold themselves to a higher standard, guys that lead other guys that probably weren’t in places or situations like that where they can know how to carry themselves, know how to attack certain things.»
It’s that kind of pedigree that gave Hurts confidence when things were looking bleak late in the game against the Rams in Week 3, knowing Davis and Carter would find a way to make a play when he saw them lining up on the field goal block team.
Dope moment between Jalen Hurts and Jordan Davis 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qsSO3Sa8oP
— YouTuber: Eagle AL (@kb_973) September 21, 2025
Before transferring for his final year at Oklahoma in 2019, Hurts played his first three seasons at Alabama, and experienced the unrelenting push for improvement instilled by Nick Saban.
«Saban used to do this thing called ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ where we’d watch film together as a team, and he’d show good plays, bad plays. He’d fire into a few guys who were on the bad film. He would just crush guys in front of the whole team, and this would be games we’d win by 40 or 50 points,» said Josh Palet, who was part of the QB room when Hurts was at Alabama. «There was never a time when he was complacent where we were, even when we were the No. 1 team in the country.
«I think Saban did a really good job of toeing the line of like, ‘You’re doing OK, but you could be better.’ That was kind of his tone with everything like, ‘That’s fine, but that’s not good enough to win the national championship.’ That’s how he’d be with everything. Jalen was the same exact way. Jalen really wanted perfection.»
DeVonta Smith is no different. He noted after their Week 7 win against the Vikings, after having a career-high 183 receiving yards, that he is one of the players who might let enjoyment fall to the side as he pushes and refines and corrects.
«You demand so much upon yourself. You demand so much upon your teammates. We all demand so much upon each other. So, I think we are prisoners of the moment sometimes and not enjoying every second of the game,» Smith said.
«But that’s part of the game, man. When there’s nothing to be happy about, you shouldn’t be happy.»
Is the Saban way fun?
«No. F— no. It’s not fun at all,» Palet said. «But you’re not there to have fun. You’re there to win. And winning’s fun.»
It sure beats the alternative.
«Very few people get to experience that feeling of winning not being enough,» said veteran edge rusher Joshua Uche, who has had his share of ups and downs with the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. «I’d rather be on that side of history than the other side.»
And other unique offerings come with being an Eagle, Uche added, like playing for a coach in Sirianni who has so much youthful energy that «it’s almost like having a player as a coach.» Uche described a locker room that is «very high energy» and where «nobody feels they’re bigger than the program.» Defensive back Marcus Epps described a collegiate, family-oriented atmosphere that’s «not super clicked up.»
Tush push revenge? Pack vs. Eagles
• Through the eyes of Eagles fans
• Broncos not satisfied w 8-2 record
• Should 49ers stick with Mac Jones?
• Jets building toward the future
Look no further than the comments of new edge rusher Jaelan Phillips to see how players feel about landing in Philadelphia.
«This is literally the greatest thing that has happened to me in my whole life, probably. It’s just awesome,» said Phillips, who was traded from the Miami Dolphins to the Eagles before the deadline for a third-round pick. «The guys are awesome. Everybody’s been super welcoming. I love the environment here. I love the vibe here.»
There is a level of competency and community and professionalism, Herman said, that «if I had my choice of any team for a player I represent to be drafted by or go to in free agency — if the numbers are right, of course — I’d put them in Philadelphia.»
It might be tough to square all that with the headline-catching drama that seems to surround the team, particularly on offense where Brown’s public venting can be viewed as symptomatic of wider internal frustrations.
«It’s not conflict. It’s intensity,» Lurie said at the fall meetings, via the Athletic. «The players are intense. Howie’s intense. I’m intense, the coach is intense. Every week, every situation, we approach it with intensity.
«We want different personalities. Sometimes, in trades or in free agency, we will bring people in that complement those that we have. They’re different on purpose. We don’t want sameness.»
When it comes to the collective mentality, one well-traveled vet said the difference here is that players hate to lose more than they like to win, whereas in other clubs, it can be the opposite.
There’s a danger in allowing expectations to overwhelm you, though, as was the case in ’23, the year after the Eagles came up just short against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
«Even when we were 10-1, everyone was walking around like their dog died,» a team source said. «All year, instead of having fun playing, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we lost the Super Bowl.'»
The team dropped six of its last seven and got bounced from the playoffs in the opening round. The ensuing offseason, Sirianni leaned hard into relationship-building to strengthen the foundation of the team. The Eagles also got Barkley, who not only responded with a historic season on the field to lead Philadelphia to a title in ’24, but served as an example of how you can be both obsessive about your craft without letting that obsession weigh you down or shape how you experience victory.
It’s a vital example he continues to uphold as Philadelphia bids for a repeat in a town, and for a team, that expects nothing less.
«I like winning, no matter how it looks. I’m always finding new ways to improve and get better and never being satisfied. But I come from the school of thought of winning shouldn’t look a way,» Barkley told ESPN. «The main job is to go out there and win football games. If that is the culture here, I guess I’m a little different from that.»
