Despite its ending, the Philadelphia Eagles gave us much to cheer about in 2022.
Most of you know this already, so what follows is a lesson for the casual sports fan. In football, whether it be played at the prep, collegiate, or professional level, there exists what’s known as the ’24-hour rule’. It’s a concept that Philadelphia Eagles fans are well aware of.
Whenever that phrase is stated, we’re typically talking about the theory that teams are allowed to stew over losses for a while (or celebrate their wins), but once we’ve given the last game’s result a day of thought, it’s time to put it behind us and move on to the next one.
Here’s another way of saying it. You can’t get too high after wins or too low after losses. There’s another way the 24-hour rule plays itself out in front of us, how we respond to immediate actions.
Football is an emotional game. Each game unfolds over three hours, and in our desire for immediate gratification and unlimited access, we, sometimes, can’t wait for a microphone to be shoved in someone’s face as soon as the game is over. Unfortunately, when that happens, you can assure yourself of moments like this one.
Perhaps had we given Richard Sherman a few moments to calm down, we would have gotten a different response.
It’s in the spirit of Sherman that we decided to hold off on talking about certain aspects of the Philadelphia Eagles 2021-2022 season until a few days after it ended. The emotional roller-coaster is over. We’re no longer angry about what we saw in the Wild Card Round.
We’ve gone back and watched every game, celebrated a season that wasn’t supposed to be as successful as it was, and pieced together a list of several genius moves that turned a 2-5 team into a playoff squad that ended the campaign one game above .500. Go ahead and take a trip down memory lane with us.
1. The Philadelphia Eagles make minor changes to their O-line and safety rotation.
It’s good to see the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line clicking again. Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson, when they’re clicking, can bring back memories of the days of Tra Thomas and Jon Runyan if you’re not careful.
Philly’s run game took off once they committed to it (more on that in a second). It was good to see the signal-callers stay vertical more often than not. It was a far cry from what we saw in 2020.
There were injuries, The Eagles lost Brandon Brooks, Isaac Seumalo, and Jack Driscoll for the season. Driscoll, who has now ended both of his NFL seasons on the injured reserve, saw his absence lead to Philly’s decision to add Landon Dickerson to the starting lineup as a right guard once he was healthy enough to go.
That led to mixed results, and Philly, through a chain of events would eventually move Dickerson over to the left side, between Mailata and Jason Kelce. Voila! We were cooking!
It doesn’t sound like a major move, but it worked, as did a dedication to a three-man safety rotation in which Rodney McLeod, Anthony Harris, and Marcus Epps split snaps at times and shared the field at others. Again, a minor adjustment worked, and it brought out the best in each player.
Say what you want about Jonathan Gannon but his trio of safeties had great years as did Avonte Maddox and Darius Slay. It will be interesting to see what happens as we transition into the offseason. Epps is signed through 2022, but McLeod and Harris are both at the end of their current deals.
2. The Philadelphia Eagles elevate Jordan Howard from the practice squad.
Before we say anything else, this has to get mentioned. Some of our Inside The Iggles staff, myself included, owes Jordan Howard an apology. I’ve compared him to other Philadelphia Eagles that the franchise held on to for much too long.
I’ve used his name in the same sentences as Jay Ajayi, DeSean Jackson, Jason Peters, and LeSean McCoy when I’ve said I can’t figure out why the rest of you keep asking the organization to bring these guys back when they’re clearly past their primes. I was right about most of those guys, but that’s another story for another day.
In all honesty, I was proven wrong by Jordan Howard. I kept looking at what he looked like after sustaining that stinger in 2019 and how he fell off of a cliff in Miami with the Dolphins. If you’ll remember, he wasn’t that impressive in the preseason either. Jordan Howard answered the bell when called upon, for the most part, and for that, he deserves some credit.
There’s a little juice left, but it appears that the Eagles are going to have to understand that, with his running style, he’s going to spend considerable portions of a 17-game season on the shelf if they keep him around.
It took much too long to elevate him from the practice squad, and truthfully, when they did so, it was more out of necessity than desire, but thank goodness they made the move. He gave this offense a spark and helped give it an identity that carried them through the season.
3. The Philadelphia Eagles rely more on Boston Scott down the stretch.
Ignoring Jordan Howard is one thing. Keeping Boston Scott on the bench is another matter entirely. No one should have questioned his value. There’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t have been playing all year.
Scott has proven his mettle, for almost three seasons now. He’s a baller that can contribute as a runner and as a receiver, and the decision to keep him on the bench for so much of the early part of the season is inexcusable.
If coaches bury guys in college, it’s a little more understandable. There’s no preseason. There’s only a Spring Game. Practice time is minimal. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why the Eagles watched Scott and Howard practice every day without thinking that these are two guys that can help the team win.
They figured it out eventually. Thank goodness it wasn’t too late because when you discuss the turnaround the Eagles made in 2021, you can’t do it without binging up Boston Scott and Jordan Howard. Here’s a tip of the cap for both of them.
4. The Philadelphia Eagles finally play the guys that earned the playing time.
Philadelphia Eagles executive vice president/general manager Howie Roseman is a tough guy to defend sometimes. It’s almost like watching a truck get stuck in the mud and spin its wheels in an attempt to get out. He continues to make bad personnel decisions, Ryan Kerrigan and Eric Wilson for instance, but he appears to be learning, albeit very slowly at times.
Okay, we all see the error in continuing to trot JJ Arcega-Whiteside and Jalen Reagor onto the playing field, and did you hear the news? Reagor will be back in 2022! Oh joy!
Here’s the point. Too often, the Eagle’s leadership spends too much time trying to convince everyone else that they’ve made the right decisions and that the rest of us will see the error of our ways if we keep watching.
Well, we have been watching and as time passes, JJAW and Reagor still can’t play, but fear not fans! We may be seeing signs that good old Howie is beginning to learn from some past sins.
As 2021 progressed, the Eagles parted ways with Eric Wilson. They reduced Kerrigan’s snaps and gave more playing time to Tarron Jackson. T.J. Edwards played more. It may not seem like huge news, but for Howie, this is massive.
Buckle up fans. We may be seeing an Eagles organization that’s leadership structure is more interested in being competitive than being right.
5. The Philadelphia Eagles trade Zach Ertz to the Arizona Cardinals.
For some, this one was tough to take. For others, not so much. Statistically, Zach Ertz is the best tight end to ever wear the Eagles jersey. He’s provided a ton of memories in his nine years with the organization, so regardless of where you are in arguments like ‘Philly should have kept him around’ or ‘they held on to him for far too long’, everyone has an opinion about the Philadelphia Eagles’ decision to finally move on from a guy we watched dive into the end zone in Super Bowl LII.
You won’t find bigger Ertz fans than the ones that work for us here at Inside The Iggles, so it pains us to say this. In the end, moving on from Zach Ertz was the right move.
Sure, he’s got a ton left. In his first appearance with the Arizona Cardinals, we watched him score on the longest catch and run of his career, but with so many moves needing to be made, it wouldn’t have made sense for Philadelphia to pay top dollar for Ertz and Dallas Goedert.
In terms of the latter, he’s shown us that he’s ready to continue what’s become a rather impressive lineage of Eagles tight ends (think of guys like Chad Lewis, L.J. Smith, and Brent Celek). Moving on from Ertz allows this Eagles team to employ a little addition by subtraction as they’ve set themselves up fairly well in terms of cap space. Now, they just need to figure out who the other guys on the TE depth chart are.
Jacks Stoll is a nice find. He isn’t quite the receiver that Ertz was, but he’s one heck of a blocker. We’ll have to see how Tyree Jackson and Noah Togai develop. For the Eagles’ offense to take the next step, it would be a nice feather in the cap if they have two or three capable tight ends, something we’ve gotten used to seeing over the past few seasons.