Ian Hartitz swoops in with the team needs for the Philadelphia Eagles heading into the NFL Draft and 2025 season.

You could say the reigning, defending, undisputed Super Bowl champions had themselves a pretty, pretty, pretty good 2024 campaign. The emergence of Mr. 2K Saquon Barkley made an already-great rushing attack that much scarier, while A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith continued to supply all sorts of goodness on the outside. Throw in another efficient campaign from Jalen Hurts, and you had one of the league's most balanced offenses to complement a downright scary Bulldog-led defensive unit.

Seriously: The below graph demonstrates the reality that this really was the league's most complete team of 2024.

Today we'll recap some of the good and bad of 2024 before getting into potential offseason injuries to monitor as well as team needs ahead of the 2025 offseason.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES 2024 RECAP

  • Record: 14-3 (10.5 preseason win total)
  • Points per game: 27.2 (7th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.165 (8th)
  • EPA per rush: +0.056 (1st)
  • Points per game allowed: 17.8 (2nd)
  • Leading passer: Jalen Hurts (2,903 yards, 18 TD, 5 INT)
  • Leading rusher: Saquon Barkley (345 carries, 2,005 yards, 13 TD)
  • Leading receiver: A.J. Brown (67 receptions, 1,079 yards, 7 TD)

 

What Are The Biggest Needs of the Eagles Ahead Of 2025?

Team Need No. 1: EDGE

Graham turns 37 in April, and Sweat doesn't feel like a lock to be retained after the team fielded trade calls for his services back in May. The interior of the defensive line remains a mega strength thanks to Bulldogs Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis, but some extra juice on the edge would be nice.

Consider: Eagles interior defensive linemen racked up the third-most total pressures in 2024, but their EDGE rushers "only" ranked 12th.

2024 third-rounder Jalyx Hunt and 2023 first-rounder Nolan Smith are available to pick up the slack; just realize the Eagles know better than anyone that no NFL defense can ever have enough quality pass rushers.

Team Need No. 2: WR3

Obviously, AJB and Smith are locked in for the long term here, but the team just can't seem to find a third receiver to truly rely on. Whether it's Dotson, Ainias Smith, Johnny Wilson, Parris Campbell, or Quez Watkins, this offense hasn't had a third WR reach 35 receptions or break 400 yards in a season in each of the past three years.

This "hole" hasn't stopped the Eagles from operating as one of the game's best offenses in recent years (spoiler: This remains a rather LOADED roster), although adding someone who can help stretch the field and/or provide some juice after the catch would be much appreciated. Don't mistake this as a plea for Philly to break the bank on someone who likely best case will be the offense's fifth target, although a lower-cost free agency deal for someone like Darius Slayton or even old friends Mack Hollins and Nelson Agholor would make sense.

Team Need No. 3: Offensive line

The Eagles are at risk of losing two quality pieces in Mekhi Becton and Fred Johnson, who played 78% and 41.6% of the offense's snaps this season, respectively. Now, PFF's reigning top-ranked offensive line is hardly at risk of falling off a cliff with four of their five starters set to return. Still, it doesn't sound like RT Lane Johnson has the intention of playing for too much longer, so simply adding more bodies to the group as a whole might be a good idea.

The Eagles have used four top-75 picks on their offensive line during the last four drafts; don't be surprised if they make it five in 2025 in a continued effort to make their offensive line strength into a super power.

Biggest surprise: RB Saquon Barkley

Obviously, everyone expected Barkley to find plenty of success behind the Eagles' ever-beastly offensive line, but I'm still going to say becoming the ninth player to ever rush for 2,000 yards in a single season is pretty damn surprising.

Barkley (overall PPR RB2) would have likely finished as THE fantasy RB1 had the Eagles let their stud chase Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record. And here's the wild part: The first-team All-Pro arguably left some meat on the bone due to Philly's continued willingness to feature Hurts on tush pushes from the 1-yard line. Nobody was tackled at the 1-yard line and did NOT score a TD on the same drive more than Barkley (11 times!) in 2024.

Whether it was pulling off the first-ever backwards hurdle or going for 302 total yards against the Rams: The AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year supplied one electric highlight after another all season long. He'd be my pick as Earth's RB1 if the aliens invaded the planet tomorrow and forced us to play them in a football game to determine whether or not the human race survived.

Biggest disappointment: WR Jahan Dotson

Mr. Howie Roseman sent a third-rounder to the Commanders for Dotson, the former 16th overall pick who flashed as a rookie with 7 TDs in just 12 games. While nobody exactly expected Dotson to displace AJB or Smith in Hurts' pecking order, 19 receptions for 216-scoreless yards with Philly's big-two receivers missing a combined eight games doesn't exactly lend a lot of confidence to the idea that the former first-round pick just needed a change of scenery to kickstart his career.

Nice catch in the Super Bowl, though!

Key injuries

The skill-position rooms seemingly managed to make it through the season without any issues that we should expect to impact next season. Really the only MAJOR injury that impacted the team at large was the loss of DE Brandon Graham (triceps) in November, and he managed to return for the Super Bowl anyways! Otherwise, Philly really did enjoy some good luck in the injury department *ferociously knocks on wood*.