Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie held his annual “State of the Eagles” address, so to speak, at the NFL owners meetings in Phoenix on Tuesday. We trimmed some of his quotes for brevity’s sake, but if you’re interested in watching the media session in full, you may do so here:
Here were my eight biggest takeaways.
1) Lurie would have to sign off on an A.J. Brown trade, so, where is he with all of that?
“Howie kept saying ‘A.J.’s an Eagle,’ and I just will say this: DeVonta and A.J., two great receivers and also great teammates. I just want to say that. These two are wonderful to have, and great teammates and great receivers. So he’s an Eagle. We’ll see what happens down the road.”
#JimmySays: “We’ll see what happens down the road.” 😬
2) A Jalen Hurts contract extension doesn’t seem to be on the team’s radar at the moment
There was a bit of a humorous exchange during Lurie’s presser, when he was answering questions about the wrong player.
Lurie was asked if a contract extension was in the works for “Jalen.” The question did not specify which “Jalen,” but every reporter in the room understood that it was in reference to Jalen Hurts.
Lurie then gave a stock answer about how the team doesn’t discuss contract negotiations.
He was then asked how he thought “Jalen” played last season, to which he simply replied, “Good.”
Lurie is typically effusive in praise for Hurts at every opportunity, and for him to just give an unenthusiastic one-word answer was kind of shocking.
He was then asked another “Jalen” follow-up question that was more clearly about Hurts, when he realized the previous two questions were about Jalen Hurts, when he thought they were about Jalen Carter, lol. OOPS! He then requested to rewind the press conference and re-answer the question about Hurts’ 2025 performance. And sure enough, he gave his usual effusive praise for Hurts.
“Oh, I love Jalen,” Lurie said. “I mean, there’s no bigger fan of Jalen than me. Clutch gene, absolutely. You know, the guy, MVP of the Super Bowl 13 months ago, should have been MVP of the Super Bowl right before that against Kansas City the first time.
“Exceptional and so dedicated, I mean, I’m really proud of him. I think you probably know, spent a lot of time with Jalen, as I do with most quarterbacks, and he’s incredibly dedicated to the game, to winning, and being a huge winner. And I love everything about him. We never would discuss [a new contract publicly]. He’s in the middle of a new contract now.”
#JimmySays: The confusion over which Jalen was being discussed kinda revealed that a new contract for Hurts isn’t at the forefront of Lurie’s mind, whereas a new contract for Jalen Carter is, which makes sense, because now would be an appropriate time for Carter to get a new deal, while a new deal for Hurts… you know, isn’t really.
It’s also maybe a little revealing that Lurie could only muster an unenthusiastic “Good” when he thought he was being asked how Carter played last season.
3) Lurie hinted at the team’s roster building strategy over the next few years
“The salary cap is at the average of expenditures, in the certain percentage of revenues in the NFL,” Lurie said. “So if you draft really well, you’re gonna have way more of the value of an average team’s expenditures in value. So Milton Williams, great player. How are we gonna afford to keep Milton Williams when we have Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Moro Ojomo? You just have to get the compensatory pick if you can plan it that way.
“But what it does, and Howie’s literally the best at it in the NFL, gives you a strategy, it’s gonna force you to do certain things on offense. To know that you’re gonna have some young, really great stars coming up on defense that you want to keep. So we’ve always done a reasonably good job of identifying who those core terrific players are. Try to sign them early if you can. And then as you’re doing that, know those are the expenditures you’re suddenly going to have on defense.
“What are you going to do on offense to sort of counter that in a way where you’re getting better young talent on first contracts on offense? And I would say that Howie’s as good as it gets on that strategy. But you don’t want it to be random. You want to plan for it. And that’s what we do, very directly plan for it. Because you know that’s going to happen. We don’t want to ever be late.”
#JimmySays: Early in the offseason, we laid out in detail how the Eagles’ draft and financial resource allocation will likely shift this offseason. Over the last half decade or so, the team has committed heavy financial resources to the offense and heavy draft resources to the defense. That will reverse in the next few years, as financial resources will be put toward the defense, and draft resources toward rebuilding an aging offense.
That’s what Lurie is talking about here.
4) Lurie pointed to the team’s ability to identify young coaching talent, and is confident in the hiring of offensive coordinator Sean Mannion
“I’m incredibly excited about the offensive staff that Nick has put together,” Lurie said. “I tell you, this is a real kudos to Nick to recognize what was clearly needed in terms of our overall offensive effectiveness.
“It’s never about one coach, one scheme, one staff or anything like that. That’s not the way we operate. We have our own proprietary metrics and ways of measuring offensive, defensive performance. And our offense was not what we were either accustomed to or expected of.
“And I tell you, Nick, one of the really great qualities is his honesty about his own staff and how he wants the best. And great interview process, outstanding process as it’s been in other cases. Sean, incredibly impressive is all I’m gonna say. You probably talk to people here, work ethic, A+. Innovativeness and dynamicism, A+.
“I like to think, and you never know, we will see that we have a history of finding young gems on offense and defense. Starting back with Jon Gruden, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, especially the hiring of Andy Reid, a non-play caller. And it just has continued, Shane Steichen, whatever, Kellen Moore.
“I’m incredibly excited at the staff that Nick and Sean put together.”
#JimmySays: Lurie mentioned the hits the Eagles have had when hiring offensive minds, but there have been plenty of misses, too. I will say that in my time in Phoenix this week, it was hard to find anyone around the league who doesn’t think Mannion was a good hire. So, we’ll see.
5) Lurie had some (rightfully) snarky comments about the Tush Push not being a focus of this year’s owners meetings, like it was a year ago
“It was a pleasure to come here and not have to fight. It was very relaxed. I didn’t have to bring Jason Kelce. We didn’t have to explain the play. I didn’t have to show how safe it is. Data proves it out. Maybe it helped that we didn’t win the Super Bowl.”
#JimmySays: Last year at the owners meetings, 22 cowardly teams decided that they didn’t want to have to stop the Tush Push on the field, so they tried to eliminate it off the field, under the guise of “player safety.”
Well, the Eagles sucked at executing the Tush Push last season, so these turds didn’t bother trying to ban it this year.
6) The Eagles are agreeable to playing a “road” game internationally this season, will not play a “home” game
“We are not going to give up a home game,” Lurie said bluntly. “We just did that in Brazil. We did it early, so we won’t be part of a cycle that has to give away a home game in the near future, which was part of our plan of being in São Paulo. We are openly available to be an away team.
“We think it’s great for spreading the Eagles’ brand and the league is so correctly directed at trying to become more global. It’s not that easy for the NFL. Tackle football is not played around the world the way basketball is and the way baseball is in some places. So yeah, we would be able to be in an away team. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen, they haven’t told us, but we’re available.
#JimmySays: The Eagles are already definitely not going to be a home team in an international game this season. There are eight open spots for international games currently:
- TBD at Cowboys, Rio de Janeiro
- TBD at Saints, in Paris
- TBD at Lions, in Munich
- TBD at 49ers, in Mexico City
- TBD at Falcons, in Madrid
- TBD at Commanders, in London
- TBD at Jaguars, in London
- And then another TBD at Jaguars, in London
• The Eagles do not have the Saints, Lions, or Falcons, on their road schedule this season, so those games are out.
• The NFL is highly unlikely to take an Eagles-Cowboys matchup out of Dallas, so that’s almost certainly out.
• The Eagles do have the 49ers on their road schedule this season, but it’s been reported that they will likely play the Dolphins.
• That leaves the three games in London, with the Eagles more likely to face the Jaguars than the Commanders, since, you know, the Eagles and Commanders are both in the NFC East. (NFL, you would make me very happy if I not only got to go to London this season, but also if I didn’t have to go to Landover, MD. So please make that happen, thank you in advance.)
7) The way the Eagles squeeze every last bit out of the salary cap won’t change
Lurie was asked if the his willingness to pay a lot of cash upfront and push salary cap charges into future years will change or not.
“This is where the emotional part probably gets in the way,” Lurie said. “I can’t help myself sometimes. Try to have every edge you can, willing to spend the cash, and I think we have a chance to win multiple more Super Bowls. And we’re in this phase where we just wanna, there’s nothing I want more than that third Lombardi.
“Last year should have been the third Lombardi, as I said, but I wanna get that third Lombardi and get it as soon as possible. And yet at the same time, you know the way we operate is we will very carefully look at the midterm and the long term, because we want to set ourselves up for sustained success. It’s so hard in this league with drafting towards the end of the first round, first place schedules, salary cap. The teams that are poor are going to be able to spend more to get to the salary cap. The teams that have an excess of star players are not.”
#JimmySays: One of the biggest advantages the Eagles have over almost every other team in the league is their willingness to borrow from future years to expand their current spending ability, as explained in depth here.
There are a lot of owners who will simply not pay cash upfront and borrow from the future. Lurie wants to win, and his willingness to front cash gives Howie Roseman competitive advantages over every other GM in the league. Eagles fans are lucky to have Lurie as the owner of their football team.
8) Lurie pretty clearly wants a new stadium
We covered this separately, but for the sake of posterity we’ll also include it here.
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