Once the ink was dry, the sale was complete, and Jeffrey Lurie’s $195 million purchase of the Philadelphia Eagles was approved by his new NFL peers, the historically scattershot franchise’s new 42-year-old steward set his sights on Palo Alto, Calif.
It was 1994. Having made a name for himself in the movie business, and now set to pursue another passion, Lurie was determined to build a first-in-class football operation. At the time, the San Francisco 49ers were the gold standard not just in the NFL, but all of professional sports—and the Eagles would face them in their fourth game of Lurie’s ownership. So as soon as the schedule came out, Philly’s new boss lined up a side trip to Stanford.
Bill Walsh was in the final year of his second stint as coach there and, among all the people Lurie wanted to mine information from in the football world, the Niners icon topped the list. Walsh, of course, didn’t just establish a winning program in San Francisco. He’d built one strong enough to withstand losing Joe Montana and even its architect, Walsh, with George Seifert and Steve Young about to guide the franchise to its fifth championship.
Looking back now, Lurie took a lot from the meeting. A few things stuck.
“It was maximizing the roster and realizing when you had some descending players what you needed to do, either to get market value or plan around [their departures],” Lurie said, a day before winning his second Super Bowl. “These are all potentially unpopular decisions. So, for me, really, philosophically, I believe you do what you think correlates with winning big—and not what’s popular.”
What Lurie and the cast he’s assembled in Philly have accomplished isn’t just popular now.
It’s the envy of the NFL.
It’s a program so sturdy that it’s won with different quarterbacks and coaches and general managers, and seemingly gets stronger and stronger—mirroring, in many ways, what Walsh, Eddie DeBartolo and Carmen Policy once constructed in San Francisco. It’s not immune to losing good people, of course. Rather, it’s become a machine in finding, developing and maximizing those kinds of people, producing a pipeline that doesn’t run dry.
Eight days ago, that machine once again spit out a Lombardi Trophy, with the Eagles defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans. This time, it happened not just with a different head coach and quarterback than the pair that led the Eagles to their first Super Bowl title seven years ago. It happened with just four players left from the 2017 team: kicker Jake Elliott, long-snapper Rick Lovato, All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson and former Pro Bowler Brandon Graham.
Jalen Hurts is in Nick Foles’s place. Cam Jurgens is in Jason Kelce’s old spot. Josh Sweat is where Vinny Curry was, Darius Slay and Quinyon Mitchell are in the spots that Jalen Mills and Ronald Darby had then, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Meanwhile, the foundation remains.
