The Philadelphia Eagles need to learn from the Seahawks' mistakes

If the Philadelphia Eagles are going to sustain their current success, they’ll need to learn from the NFL most recent failed dynasty: the Seattle Seahawks.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A young, hungry team of fresh upstarts go on a prolific run through the playoffs, while suffering some significant losses along the way, only to pull off a historic Super Bowl victory against a veteran, Hall of Fame-bound quarterback.

I know that description sounds a lot like the Philadelphia Eagles, but it could also be applied to the Super Bowl 48 champion Seattle Seahawks.

And in Seattle, Philadelphia may see a nightmarish vision of what their team could become if they don’t wade carefully into the post-championship waters.

After absolutely routing the Denver Broncos by a score of 43-8 in the Super Bowl, the Hawks looked like a team could have sustained continued success for the next decade plus, and cement themselves among the best teams in NFL history.

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With a young franchise quarterback in Russell Wilson and arguably the league’s best defense in the Legion of Boom, the 2013 Seahawks were a team built the right way, through a collection of unselfish homegrown talent, and respected veterans who came in to help lead the younger players along.

It’s almost like looking in a mirror.

And after their Super Bowl victory, the 2014 Seahawks kept things rolling, with Pete Carroll‘s squad once again winning 12 games in route to home field advantage throughout the playoffs and gave their 12th Man a front row seat to an eventual return trip to the Super Bowl.

Now facing off against the Patriots, the Seahawks fought tooth and nail for the entirety of the game, only to lose the game on an ill-advised, now infamous fourth-and-goal pass.

But hey, they’ll get ‘um next year, right?

Well, since that run, the Hawks have remained competitive, with the team making the playoffs in each subsequent season, but they’ve continued to slip further and further away from championship relevancy with each passing year.

But how could that be? How could a team so close to revolutionizing the league now be in a downward spiral?

A lot of it has to do with how their roster was constructed.

When the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, many of their top players, like Wilson, Richard Sherman, and Bobby Wagner were still on their rookie deals. This cap flexibility allowed the Hawks front office to sign key veterans like Marshawn Lynch, Michael Bennet, Kam Chancellor and Cliff Avril to under market, often times prove-it deals after failing to latch on at with their previous teams, and assemble one of the league’s most talented rosters

But when you draft incredibly well and pick diamonds in the rough out of free agency, those players are eventually going to want to get paid, and for the Seahawks, it all came to a head at once.

While signing players like Wilson, Wagner, and Sherman to long-term, top-flight deals seemed essential to retaining the team’s Super Bowl winning-core, it also caused the team to price themselves out of retaining key cogs in their machine, like J.R. Sweezy, Malcolm Smith and yes, Byron Maxwell, with replacement players struggling to live up to the level of play of their predecessors.

No move more represents that ideology than when the team traded Max Unger, their Pro Bowl center and a first-round pick to the Saints for Jimmy Graham, a player they assumed could be the missing piece to a Super Bowl 50 victory. And while Graham did play well when healthy, Unger’s exodus decimated Carroll’s offensive line and left Wilson running for his life on seemingly every play.

For a quarterback who excelled as a game manager that could extend plays with his legs if need be, having to win games single-handily with a weaker supporting class after each passing season became harder and harder to do. While the Seahawks were incredibly lucky in drafting a string of Pro Bowl players in the late rounds of the NFL Draft, that kind of success simply can’t be replicated with any regularity, and the Seahawks have suffered as a result.

While Seattle may eventually reload with young talent, it just seems unlikely their roster will ever rebound to their Super Bowl form with so much cap space locked into only a few players.

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr /Getty Images) /

Philadelphia Eagles implications

While this is all great, what does it have to do with the Eagles, you may ask?

Well, much like the Seahawks, the Eagles also had many of their best players on rookie contracts, like Carson Wentz, Jay Ajayi, Jalen Mills, and Jordan Hicks, and got incredible performances in 2017 out of veterans on cheap, prove it deals, like Nick Foles, Patrick Robinson, and LeGarrette Blount. But how long can that formula breed success?

Sure, almost all of the Eagles starters are slated to return in 2018, with only Robinson and weak-side linebacker Nigel Bradham slated to become free agents, but unlike the Seahawks, the Eagles are already pretty hard pressed for cap space.

According to Over the Cap, the Eagles are currently $9 million OVER the salary cap for 2018 before free agency has even opened up, an additional $5 million likely on the way to eventually pay their 2018 draft class, so the team is going to have to make some seriously tough decisions as they reload for their second run at a Lombardi Trophy in as many years.

With the emergence of former first-round pick Derek Barnett as a legitimate starting caliber right end, and Chris Long proving himself a great reliever coming off the bench, could lifetime Philly fan Vinny Curry soon be suiting up for another team?

How about Jason Kelce? I mean sure, he’s a Pro Bowler, and one of the most athletic centers in the league, but with the team bringing in centers Isaac Seumalo and Stefen Wisniewski last offseason, could the Eagles trade their diminutive blocker for a future asset and add some in-house size to their front five? I mean it sure worked great for the Seahawks when they did the same with Unger…

And then comes the topic of Foles.

Some believe that Foles is simply too good to trade away, even for a first-round pick, as he provides the Eagles with arguably the best insurance policy in the league for Wentz’s knee, but after next season he will without a doubt be leading another team onto the field on Sundays, so why not capitalize on his value when it’s at its all-time high, and sign a cheaper option to replace the Super Bowl MVP?

While I’ll avoid casting judgment on any of these decisions, as they will likely make or break the chances of the Eagles return to the Super Bowl in 2019, it’s worth wondering what exactly the team will do to not only remain competitive in 2018 but actually improve going into next season.

With Wentz under contract until 2020, the Eagles at least won’t have an immediate collapse like the Ravens did when they signed Joe Flacco to a $100 million deal mere weeks after his own Super Bowl victory, a move that has essentially handcuffed the team’s front office and has left Baltimore consistently mediocre for the last half-decade.

Next: The Philadelphia Eagles could be the NFL’s next dynasty

No, if the Eagles are going to remain relevant for the foreseeable future, they’ll need to find the right balance of rewarding homegrown talent, while also replacing less vital parts with cheaper alternatives through the draft, the waiver wire, and selective free agency. If not, the Eagles may also find themselves one of the leagues many ‘what if’ failed dynasties.

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The Philadelphia Eagles need to learn from the Seahawks’ mistakes

By Matty Breisch | Feb 7, 2018

If the Philadelphia Eagles are going to sustain their current success, they’ll need to learn from the NFL most recent failed dynasty: the Seattle Seahawks.

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Philadelphia Eagles implications