Jeffrey Lurie Laments Lost Super Bowl Opportunity
Not that it's a secret, but Jeffrey Lurie clearly defined the Eagles' belief system at the annual NFL Meetings this week.
"Offenses dominate in this league," the steward of Philadelphia's franchise said to reporters on Tuesday night from Phoenix.
You can debate if Lurie's Eagles are the league's gold standard, but the semantics aren't important. Take one look at the annual coaches photo or search the front offices around the league and you will see former Lurie employees populating at a rapid rate when compared to other organizations.
Lurie may not be E.F. Hutton just yet, but many are always listening and more importantly watching what Philadelphia does.
The Eagles are usually well ahead of the curve when it comes to league trends and Lurie hinted at what the overall strategy has to be to win at the highest level in the modern NFL.
In previous eras, the cliche was great defense beats great offense.
That's arcane thinking now, according to Lurie.
"We had an outstanding defense this year. ... outstanding offense. It’s why we dominated the season," he said. "You come to games with great quarterbacks and [Tom] Brady, [Patrick] Mahomes, Jalen [Hurts], Nick Foles when he played that day [in Super Bowl LII].
"Offenses dominate in this league and that’s why we’ve always focused more resource allocation on making sure we have an outstanding offense because it is very hard to stop."
To that end, the Eagles have played in two Super Bowls over the past six years, winning SB LII 41-33 over New England when the two teams combined for a mind-numbing 1,151 yards, and losing this past February to Kansas City, 38-35, when the teams piled up 757 yards.
The Eagles averaged 477.5 YPG and 38.0 points per game and their opponents were at 476.5 YPG and 35.5 PPG in the two Super Bowls.
"In our two Super Bowls, neither offenses were stopped very often," Lurie understated.
The difference between the win and the loss was one defensive stop amid the wave of offense, Brandon Graham's strip-sack of Brady in Super Bowl LII.
The Eagles' defense finished No. 2 overall and as the No. 1 passing defense in the NFL last season, far better than their 2017-18 counterparts but last season's group was unable to make the big play with everything on the line in the second half against Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Many in the fan base scapegoated former defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon on his way out of town to coach the Arizona Cardinals and now-departed safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson added his own pitchfork in the form of the classic tweet-and-delete.
Lurie doesn't bye that and actually tried to convince Gannon to stick around as DC with a significant raise.
"I’ll add Jalen to this, the Jalen Hurts’, the Patrick Mahomes’, the Josh Allens, the Joe Burrows, the young guns and the old guns, Aaron Rodgers and all that group, it’s impossible [to stop the best quarterbacks] given the rules of this league," he said.
"I think it maybe started back with Andy [Reid], but we’ve always wanted to have dynamic offense and know that you can have a really good defense, but it’s very hard to stop a really dynamic offense."
The sore spot from the SB loss most Eagles fans haven't gotten over was the late holding call against James Brandberry that extended a K.C. drive that would have likely resulted in a field goal lead with plenty of time left on the clock.
"I think about a minute and 43 (seconds) left in the game, and one timeout, we got the ball at the 25-yard-line, what would have happened? I would have liked that opportunity," Lurie said.
"... We were built for it."
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
