5 biggest takeaways from the Eagles late-season NFL playoff run

The Eagles aren’t learning from recent mistakes, and standards must be higher.

If every time we get to an offseason the goal is to find wide receivers and cornerbacks (as the Eagles will most certainly do again in 2022), something is broken. The Eagles keep ruining drafts. They keep signing expensive free agents to cover for the mistakes.

You have noticed that none of the Pro Bowlers on this team are ever under the age of 30, haven’t you?

One of the eight players the Eagles drafted in 2017 is still on the team (Derek Barnett), and he has one foot out of the door. Howie’s got two major jobs, managing the salary cap and overseeing each NFL Draft. He hasn’t done either job particularly well with any consistency. Organizationally, this franchise isn’t learning from its mistakes.

And no, Howie’s mastery of shaving players at the beginning of every offseason to make this team cap compliant doesn’t qualify as managing the cap well. Plus, no one’s going to give this guy a pat on the back for cleaning up a mess that he made.

The roster is, shall we say, lacking, and in terms of the last three playoff appearances, this team can’t afford to gamble on winning eight or nine games and hoping that will be enough to earn them a spot in the postseason, especially when we all know they won’t do any real damage when they get there.

So, when it’s all said and done, sure, making the postseason in a year we’d thought would be a rebuilding year is excellent, but still, the expectations have to be higher. This team must also learn from past draft mistakes. They have to nail the next one.