How an unusually early bye week helped turn the Eagles season around originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW ORLEANS — When the NFL schedule was released in mid-May, the Eagles weren’t thrilled about having a Week 5 bye.
That’s as early as they get.
“You see it’s a Week 5 bye, it’s ughh Week 5 bye,” general manager Howie Roseman said on Saturday, the day before the team left for the Super Bowl in New Orleans. “We’re gonna have such a long run after that. It’s terrible. It’s not even cold in Philly if you wanted to go away.”
It turns out the timing of that bye week was actually perfect.
The Eagles this season limped into that bye with a disappointing 2-2 record and were coming off a 33-16 loss to the Buccaneers in Tampa, where the Eagles’ 2023 season ended in miserable fashion in the wild-card round.
After a bunch of changes to the team in the offseason, Nick Sirianni was back and the hope was that this very talented team would compete for a Super Bowl. But things didn’t look great after four games. There were definitely good moments. They beat the Saints in New Orleans, the Packers in São Paulo and were a Saquon Barkley catch away from beating the Falcons and having a 3-1 record. But they were far from the team that will face the Chiefs on Sunday for the Lombardi Trophy.
It’s too far to say that the Week 5 bye saved the Eagles season, but it definitely offered the team a chance to correct some things early on. It was one of the important inflection points of the season.
Four months later, the Eagles are getting ready to play in Super Bowl LIX.
“It just worked out that that was really good timing for us to kind of all get together, have honest conversations and move forward,” Roseman said. “I think there are a bunch of turning-point moments in this season and, I think I’ve probably said this before, when you get the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl, there’s probably 20 moments you could look at if they would have gone a different way, you’re probably not sitting here.
“But, certainly in hindsight, the timing of that bye and getting together was a huge part.”
So what actually happened during the bye week?
For starters, the Eagles came back with Cooper DeJean as their nickel cornerback. After DeJean missed most of training camp with a hamstring injury, the Eagles were patient with their second-round pick and played Avonte Maddox through the first quarter of the season. But beginning with Week 6, DeJean has been the guy and that switch has helped transform the defense. Along with teammate Quinyon Mitchell, DeJean this season was named a finalist for Defensive Rookie of they Year.
The bye week was also when offensive linemen Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson walked into Sirianni’s office to pitch a more run-heavy offense that would lean on their strengths. After Jalen Hurts averaged 33 passing attempts through four games, the Eagles became a run-first team and Saquon Barkley became just the ninth 2,000-yard rusher in NFL history. That great rushing offense has continued in the playoffs, where Barkley has averaged over 147 yards per game.
And then there were the conversations between Sirianni and Hurts. The relationship between those two was a major storyline coming out of the 2023 season but Hurts coming back from the bye week said he and the head coach shared some “great moments” together during the week off.
“We’re the two leaders of the team,” Hurts said on Oct. 9. “I’m happy and fortunate that we were able to come together in harmony and have the same goal in mind, trying to get this thing right. I got a ton of confidence in him, a ton of confidence in what he brings and everything he’s been able to accomplish.”
Coming off the bye, the Eagles rattled off 10 straight wins and have now won 15 of 16 going into the Super Bowl. The only game they lost was to the Commanders in Week 16 when Hurts was knocked out early; and they were able to avenge that loss with a 55-23 win in the NFC Championship Game.
Sirianni on Saturday pushed back against the idea that there was something miraculous about the Eagles’ bye week. Even though the season didn’t get off to the best start, he didn’t want to lose sight of all the work the team put in during OTAs and training camp.
The bye week was just one important step in this journey.
“I thought it was a very business as usual approach in our bye week. I really did,” Sirianni. “I just thought it was really a lot of business as usual. … We didn’t have any panic. We didn’t have any, ‘oh my gosh.’ We just tried to figure out the things that we were doing well and the things we weren’t doing well and try to get going on that road.”
That road eventually led them to New Orleans with a chance to win it all.
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