PHILADELPHIA — Editor's note: The above video is from July 25.
There is a lot of hype around the 2022 Philadelphia Eagles.
Everyone can feel it.
There is a buzz around the team coming out of an offseason that makes a 2021 playoff team look vastly improved on both sides of the ball entering this season.
However, that buzz is about what the team looks like on paper.
The Eagles have been here before.
The team is no strangers to the preseason favorite treatment. The Eagles are also not new to the fact that expectations often don’t reflect reality.
Being talented on paper can only take you so far, and nobody knows that more than General Manager Howie Roseman.
“Our most talented teams have not necessarily been our best teams,” Roseman said previously. “You can have all this talent but them coming together and putting the right pieces in place is the most important thing.”
Roseman has been a part of many teams that received similar praise that the 2022 roster is getting.
The general manager was the mastermind behind the 2011 “Dream Team” roster that featured a number of free agent signings and trades for what were seen as top-tier, available veterans: the likes of Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Cullen Jenkins, and Jason Babin.
The Eagles decided to have an offensive line coach, Juan Castillo, put it all together as the new defensive coordinator, and one of the preseason Super Bowl favorites didn’t even make the playoffs, going 8-8.
Roseman also saw former head coach Chip Kelly do something similar in 2015, when he overhauled the roster after taking control of the front office. Kelly moved on from core pieces like Nick Foles, LeSean McCoy, and Jeremy Maclin, while adding a collection of new starters in veterans like Sam Bradford, DeMarco Murray, Byron Maxwell, and Kiko Alonso.
The roster made in Kelly’s image received a lot of offseason praise, so much so that ESPN insider Adam Schefter picked the Eagles to win the Super Bowl and have Sam Bradford as Super Bowl MVP.
None of the new pieces fit, and the team went 7-9.
Kelly was fired.
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Collecting talent is crucial, but making sure the pieces make sense together is equally as important. So too is not buying into the outside hype, and not looking too far down the road.
Roseman and the Eagles have learned that lesson the hard way in the past, and it is why the organization’s top leaders have preached a day-by-day approach.
Head coach Nick Sirianni preached this philosophy last year when the Eagles seemed dead-in-the-water at 2-5.
Sirianni was made fun of for his “plant the seeds” flower reference about letting everything grow from the ground up, but it helped turn the 2021 season around as Philadelphia went on to finish the season with seven wins in nine games, and a playoff berth.
The head coach is doubling down on that mentality, telling the team Tuesday at the start of training camp that they cannot afford to look too ahead: Not at the Super Bowl. Not at the playoffs. The team needs to “climb the mountain”.
Maintaining that focus will be a bigger challenge now that the expectations have been raised once again. But, this team looks determined to make these expectations become a reality.