An annual Nick Sirianni snub, a rare accomplishment by Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean and a Jalen Hurts achievement nobody else has pulled off since a former Eagle more than 20 years ago.
Welcome to our final 2025 edition of Roob’s 10 Random Eagles Observations. (Remember, our post-game observations aren’t random, they’re instant!)
Did you know the Eagles are 93-53-1 with three Super Bowl appearances and two championships since we started doing weekly 10 Random Observations in 2017?
No doubt there’s a connection!
1A. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were talking during the 49ers-Colts Monday night game about Coach of the Year candidates, and they mentioned Mike Shanahan, Shane Steichen, Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton, Mike Vrabel, Liam Coen and a couple others. One name that didn’t come up? Only the guy whose team has 10 wins already and won the NFC East coming off a Super Bowl championship despite having the 4th-hardest schedule in the league. Nick Sirianni will never win Coach of the Year because it’s an award that almost always goes to a coach whose team has success after a bad year. And so far Sirianni has never had a bad year. It’s really become Comeback Coach of the Year. Andy Reid hasn’t been Coach of the Year since 2002 because when you win 12 or 13 games every year and win a bunch of Super Bowls you’re never bouncing back from anything. Maybe he will next year if the Chiefs rebound. Sirianni’s one chance at CoY was 2021 because he got the Eagles to the playoffs in his first season a year after a disastrous four-win season under Doug Pederson. He got no votes. Zero. Zilch. Nil. In 2022, he got the Eagles to the Super Bowl and finished fifth. In 2023, the Eagles won 11 games and got to the playoffs again. Twelve coaches got votes. Sirianni was not among them. Last year, the Eagles won the Super Bowl – and remember, voting is after the regular season – and he finished 12th. This year Sirianni has the Eagles back in the playoffs and the Vegas oddsmakers give him the 15th-best chance to win it. What are we doing here? Kevin Stefanski has won one playoff game in his life and is 13 games under .500 in six seasons with the Browns, and he’s won two Coach of the Year awards. Jason Freaking Garrett – who won two playoff games in 10 seasons with the Cowboys – won it in 2016. Matt Nagy won it in 2018 and his next postseason win will be his first. What’s the real reason Sirianni never gets considered for this award despite being one of just five coaches in history to take his first five teams to the playoffs, reaching two Super Bowls, winning one and compiling the 5th-highest winning percentage in history? I’m guessing the fact that he’s an offensive coach who doesn’t call plays is part of it and the fact that he can come across as obnoxious and unlikeable is also part of it. He makes funny faces on the sideline and yells at fans and loses his cool sometimes. Who cares. He’s created a culture of winning in that building that’s unparalleled in the league, and isn’t that what being a head coach is all about? Winning? No other team has reached the playoffs and won a Super Bowl in each of the last five seasons, and no other coach in history has reached the postseason in each of his first five seasons and won a Super Bowl along the way. The only other team to reach the playoffs in each of the last five years is the Bills, who the Eagles face on Sunday. And Sean McDermott has never won it, either. I’m one of the 50 sports writers nationally that votes for the all-pro team and the major AP awards, and I’m not sure exactly where, but I will have Nick somewhere in my top five when I submit my vote. I might be the only one.
1B. Just for fun, I looked up Sirianni’s won-loss record against every coach who’s won a Coach of the Year award, and it’s 27-9 for a .750 winning percentage: Bruce Arians (0-2), Bill Belichick (1-0), Brian Daboll (7-2), Jim Harbaugh (0-2), John Harbaugh (1-0), Sean McVay (4-0), Matt Nagy (2-0), Kevin O’Connell (3-0), Sean Payton (1-1), Andy Reid (3-2), Ron Rivera (2-0), Lovie Smith (1-0), Kevin Stefanski (1-0), Mike Vrabel (1-0).
2A. With Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean both making the Pro Bowl this year in their second season, I was wondering how rare it is for one team to have two cornerbacks in their first or second season make a Pro Bowl team the same year. Rare is right. The only other team that’s done that is the 1961 Houston Oilers, with 2nd-year corners Mark Johnston and Tony Banifield, who were both undrafted.
2B. Including Jalen Carter last year and Landon Dickerson in 2022, the Eagles have now had four players in their first or second season make the Pro Bowl in the last four years. They had five in the previous 33 years – Donovan McNabb in 2000, Deean Jackson in 2009, Nick Foles in 2013, Cody Parkey in 2014 and Carson Wentz in 2017.
3A. Jalen Hurts is the first quarterback in 22 years to follow a game with four interceptions and no touchdown passes with a two-game span with at least five touchdown passes and no interceptions. Hurts threw four interceptions against the Chargers and has followed it with three TDs and no INTs against the Raiders and two TDs and no INTs vs. the Commanders. The last QB to do that was a former Eagle. In 2003, Jeff Garcia threw four interceptions and no touchdowns for the 49ers in a 44-6 loss to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. He followed that with four touchdowns and no INTs in a 50-14 win over the Cards at Candlestick and then two TDs and no INTs in a 41-38 loss to the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium.
3B. Curious note about that 49ers-Cards game. All three quarterbacks were Eagles at one point. Garcia obviously quarterbacked the Eagles to the playoffs in 2006 after Donovan McNabb got hurt and then finished his career here in 2009. The Cards’ starting quarterback was Josh McCown, who was here in 2019 and finished the playoff game against the Seahawks after Carson Wentz got hurt, and then later came out of retirement to serve as the Eagles’ emergency COVID quarterback in 2020. He is now Vikings quarterbacks coach, so he was Wentz’s position coach this year. McCown was replaced in that game by Jeff Blake, who spent 2004 backing up McNabb on the Eagles’ 2004 Super Bowl team.
4A. This is the seventh time the Eagles have had two players in their first or second year picked to a Pro Bowl team in the same year but only the second time in the last 56 years. In 1989, Eric Allen and Keith Jackson both made the Pro Bowl in their second season.
4B. Mitchell and DeJean are the first Eagles defensive teammates in their first or second year ever to make the Pro Bowl in the same season. Before Carter, Mitchell and DeJean, the last Eagles defensive player to make a Pro Bowl this quickly was Allen in 1989.
4C. This is the 13th consecutive season the Eagles have had a Pro Bowl offensive lineman, or all 13 years since Jeff Stoutland arrived here on Chip Kelly’s staff in 2013. They had a Pro Bowl offensive lineman in eight of the previous 41 years. They’ve had 27 Pro Bowl offensive linemen in 13 years under Stoutland. They had 20 in the previous 50 years.
5. I’m fascinated to see how Howie Roseman handles the Jordan Davis-Jalen Carter dynamic. Before the season, we kind of assumed Carter would reset the defensive line market with a deal north of the NFL-record $32 million per year that Chris Jones makes per year, and we also assumed Davis would get a deal in the $12 to $15 million per year range either here or somewhere else. Carter was coming off a monster all-pro season in his first year as a starter, and Davis was muddling through another disappointing regular season as the 13th pick overall in 2022 (although he did shine in the postseason). Now here we are and the tables have turned. Carter has missed games with a couple injuries and a suspension and when he’s played he’s been good but not elite. Vic Fangio called him out earlier in the season for being out of shape, and it’s fair to wonder if he’ll ever consistently live up to his enormous potential. Meanwhile, Davis has blossomed into one of the NFL’s top interior linemen, and any way you measure it he’s had a better year than his college teammate and best friend. More consistent, more productive, more impactful. I’m not sure how far Carter’s value has dropped – if at all – but I do know Davis’s value has skyrocketed up into the $20 to $25 million range. Davis’s $13 million one-year tender for 2026 now looks like a bargain, and there were questions whether the Eagles would even offer him that. Davis is signed through 2026 with the tender, but you don’t want him to go into the final year of his contract without a new deal. And Carter, now finishing his third year, is eligible after the season for an extension. Has Davis’s breakthrough season made it impossible to keep both? Carter clearly has a higher ceiling than Davis. When he’s healthy and fit he’s unstoppable. A healthy Jalen Carter is as dominating as any interior lineman in the league. But Davis has been so steady and solid and consistent and there’s something to be said for that. You know he’ll never get himself ejected by spitting on an opposing quarterback. And he hasn’t missed a game since the middle of 2022. With his new physique, he’s transformed himself into one of the league’s top defensive tackles. Then there’s Moro Ojomo, playing on a 7th-round rookie deal through 2026 and also playing at a high level. Howie will have to address his contract as well and you can’t pay big money to three interior linemen. Howie has almost drafted too well on defense and it’s made for some tough decisions. It will be fascinating to see if he can find a way to keep Davis and Carter. It’s hard to imagine losing either one.
6. It’s always fun to do this at the end of the year. It’s become an annual tradition. Since 1997, a 29-season span:
* The Cowboys have won four playoff games and the Eagles have won 20.
* The Cowboys have reached zero NFC Championship Games, the Eagles have reached seven.
* The Cowboys have reached zero Super Bowls, the Eagles have reached four and won two. * The Cowboys haven’t had back-to-back seasons with a playoff win. The Eagles have had five.
7. With Moro Ojomo (5.0 sacks) Jordan Davis (4 ½ sacks), Byron Young (2 ½ sacks) and Jalen Carter (2.0), the Eagles are the only NFL team with four interior linemen with at least two sacks. This is the third time since sacks became an official stat in 1982 the Eagles have had three interior linemen with multiple sacks, and all three in the last five years. In 2021, it was Javon Hargrave (7.0), Fletcher Cox (3 ½), Milton Williams (2.0) and Hassan Ridgeway (2.0) and in 2023 it was Carter (6.0), Cox (5.0), Davis (2.5) and Marlon Tuipulotu (2.0). Brandon Graham’s three sacks have come from the inside, but he is officially listed as an edge rusher so they don’t count as defensive tackle sacks.
8. Someone has to explain to me how Lane Johnson and Jordan Davis don’t even make Pro Bowl alternate this year. Johnson only played 10 games, but Tampa’s Tristan Wirfs made the Pro Bowl team and played 11 games, and Johnson is better than Wirfs and had a better season. And anybody who has watched the Eagles knows that Davis has had a far better season than Jalen Carter, who made the team. I know it’s just the Pro Bowl and there isn’t even a game anymore, but this stuff matters when we look back at players’ legacies and it matters for Hall of Fame consideration and it matters for incentive bonuses. It just matters. I think Vic Fangio nailed it when he said Tuesday they need to revamp the voting process: “I think they need to form a committee for the Pro Bowl, get a couple retired coaches, couple retired personnel guys, couple retired players that will take pride in it. Everybody and their mother’s got a vote.”
9. Why is it so important for the Eagles to do anything possible to get the No. 2 seed and not rest players and accept the No. 3 seed? This franchise has only won five road playoff games since 1950 and only one in the last 16 years – the Double-Doink in Chicago in 2018. Think about that for a moment. They’re 5-14 in road postseason games since beating the Rams 14-0 at L.A. Coliseum in 1949. They’re 11-4 all-time in playoff games at the Linc, including five straight wins. Only the 49ers have a longer home playoff winning streak, with seven straight wins. Going back to 1991, the Eagles are 15-5 at home in the postseason and all-time they’re 20-9. As long as there’s any mathematical chance to get the conference semifinal game at the Linc you have to try. And it’s not all that far-fetched. Two Eagles wins and two Bears losses mean if the Eagles win wild-card weekend, they’ll be back at the Linc the following weekend. With the chance to host the NFC Championship Game if the No. 1 seed loses, which is exactly what happened last year.
10. When the Eagles released Mack Hollins on Dec. 3, 2019, I don’t think anybody figured he’d be having a big-time season six years later for one of the best teams in the NFL. Hollins, the Eagles’ 4th-round pick eight years ago, averaged 11 catches for 150 yards in his first five seasons. He was largely seen as a decent special teamer who just never panned out as a receiver. He was 29 years old when he signed with the Raiders before the 2022 season and playing with Derek Carr in Josh Daniels’ offense something clicked. Hollins out of nowhere caught 57 passes for 690 yards and four touchdowns, reviving his career. He spent 2023 with the Falcons and 2024 with the Bills and this year with the Patriots he’s been terrific, with 46 catches, 550 yards and two TDs for a potential Super Bowl team. The last four years he’s averaged 36 catches for 450 yards, and he’s now the Pats’ 2nd-leading receiver, behind Stefon Diggs. This is a guy who has played 49 career games without a catch. Hollins, now 32, is in his ninth year in the NFL. Only five WRs drafted by the Eagles had longer NFL careers: DeSean Jackson (15), Harold Carmichael (13), Tommy McDonald (11), Nelson Agholar (10) and Jason Avant (10). And only four active WRs drafted in the fourth round or later have been in the league longer than Mack: Diggs, Tyreek Hill, Chris Moore and Demarcus Robinson. Of the 32 wide receivers drafted in 2017, Hollis is one of only nine still in the league, and his 2,619 career yards are 10th-most of those 32 WRs. Good ol’ Mack Hollins. Who woulda thunk it?