Best Eagles teams all-time: Where does the 2024 squad rank?

With the Philadelphia Eagles Week 13 win over the Ravens, the sights have firmly been shifted from the NFC Championship Game to the Super Bowl. This is an awesome good team, and they have the opportunity to be great. There’s only been one great Eagles team in the past 30 years and they won it all in 2017.

We’ve seen really really good Eagles teams from time to time. Hell, the 2022 team was special, but if you don’t win the Super Bowl, you can’t be considered great.

Three powerhouse Eagles teams have been on the verge of being great

The 2017 Eagles are not going to be counted in this ranking system. They won the Super Bowl and no other Eagles team had ever done that. It would be disrespectful to that team to compare teams that didn’t win a Super Bowl to them; think of it as a point of reverence. The 2024 team, until further notice, is not comparable to 2017.

We’re past ‘NFC Championship-watch’ for this team. We’re fully on ‘Take out a second mortgage to buy Super Bowl tickets and lodging in New Orleans-watch.’ Because of that, we’re going to compare the 2024 Eagles to the two other teams that have made it to the Super Bowl in the past 30 years: the 2004 team and the 2022 team.

Defense:

The 2004 defense was disgustingly talented. Brian Dawkins, Jevon Kearse, and Jeremiah Trotter were there. Teams averaged only 16.25 points per game against the starters. If you take out the last two games where Andy Reid played the backups, that number drops to 14.4 points per game. 

Regardless, the 260 points allowed was the second-fewest of any team in the league that year.

They led the league in interceptions and were a top-five team in sacks; it was violent, physical, and dominant.

In the playoffs, they held Randy Moss to 3 catches for 51 yards and Michael Vick to 136 passing yards and only 26 rushing yards. When they played against top talent, they showed up.

The 2022 defense will be known for two things: having the most sacks since the 1984 Chicago Bears, and a second-half failure in the Super Bowl. 

The sacks were amazing and this isn’t an attempt to take anything away from that. The defensive line, spearheaded by Haason Reddick, Javon Hargrave, and Fletcher Cox, was outstanding and will go down as one of the best of all time. The reason the sacks were available is because the offense had huge leads early in the game and sub-par quarterbacks had to drop back pretty much the entire second half of games. 

C.J. Gardner-Johnson tied for the most interceptions in the league despite missing five games. Haason Reddick had the second-most sacks (and was subsequently one of the biggest Defensive Player of the Year snubs of all time).

When that defense was firing, they were unstoppable. Unfortunately, the glaring issue was what Jonathon Gannon’s defense would do against elite quarterbacks, which was the ultimate downfall on a terrible field in the Super Bowl. 

We know what the 2024 defense is, and it’s utterly dominant. They’re allowing the fewest yards per game and the third-fewest points per game in the NFL. They’re making elite quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow look like dudes coming in off the street.

They’re tackling, they’re covering, they’re pressuring, they’re sacking, and they’re winning. It’s great football.

Defensive ranking:

1. 2004
2. 2024
3. 2022

Offense: 

In 2004, everything on offense seemed to get unlocked with the addition of Terrell Owens, who in that season, became (arguably) the best Eagles wide receiver of all time. In his one (mostly) full season with the Eagles he had a clean 1,200 receiving yards (15.6 yards per catch) and 14 touchdowns.

He helped Donovan McNabb get to 3,875 passing yards, 31 touchdowns, and only eight interceptions. On top of that, Brian Westbrook was cruising with nine touchdowns by way of 812 rushing and 703 receiving yards.

That offense dropped an average of 24.1 points per game and it was highlighted by a 49-point Week 10 outing in Dallas. They were ridiculous.

That being said, the 2022 Eagles' offense committed war crimes. They averaged 28 points per game, and a wildly significant chunk of those points (12.6 per game) came in the second quarter. 

It was A.J. Brown’s first year with the team and he racked up a career-high 1,496 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. DeVonta Smith was right there with him with 1,196 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. 

And then there was Miles Sanders who had his best season (by far) with 1,269 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, which was crazy because he had zero touchdowns throughout the entirety of the 2021 season.

This all really paled in comparison to Jalen Hurts’ meteoric rise as a starter. He threw for 3,701 yards (66.5 completion percentage) and 22 touchdowns, but also 760 rushing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns. If it wasn’t for him missing two games near the end of the season, he would’ve almost definitely been the MVP. There were no defenses, regular or post-season, that could stop this offense. 

The 2024 offense is different from both the 2004 and 2022 offenses: It’s all about Saquon Barkley. He’s currently 109 yards away from breaking the Eagles’ single-season rushing record, but that’s small potatoes compared to a very semi-real chance that he could be the first running back to win the MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012. 

The passing game has left more to be desired. With only five games left in the season, neither Brown nor Smith have made it close to the 1,000 receiving yard mark. The team is winning and they’re winning big, scoring 26.7 points per game. The gaping hole in this offense is the lack of production in the first quarter, which is an issue the 2004 and 2022 teams didn’t have.

Offensive Ranking:

1. 2022
2. 2004
3. 2024

All of these teams were/are great football teams. Just because the 2022 defense is the worst of the three doesn’t mean it wasn’t prolific, and that’s the same with the 2024 offense. Sure, they’re not blasting through teams from the jump, but they are closing games with a lethal and prolific ground game. 

It’s tough to compare these teams because of the way the NFL has changed. In 2004, the NFL was still a defensive league and now it’s a predominantly offensive league. That means this is an attempt to try to assess which team was better at its best thing, while also trying to not let nostalgia affect the ranks.

Team Ranking:

1. 2022
2. 2004
3. 2024

It’s close. The 2022 team had an offense that killed defenses and a defense that crushed offenses that were trying to catch up. The Early 2000s were the best era of Eagles football, but the 2022 team edges out the 2004 team. The defensive players might not have had the same personality as they did in 2004, but they were lightning in a bottle that dominated who they played. The 2024 team uses soul crushing defense and a demoralizing offense to make every game go the way they want it to go. If this year’s defense continues to be the best at stopping high-powered 2024 offenses, there’s a chance they could jump up in the ranks.