Four Pillars
Posted June 24th, 2026 | 1 Comment »The last decade has been a golden age of Eagles football. The team went to three Super Bowls and won two of them. They came painfully close to winning the other. There was only one losing season. Winning is expected. Anything less than being a SB contender is considered an off-year.
There is a lot of credit for the success since 2017. The team hired good head coaches in Doug Pederson and Nick Sirianni. There were some great assistants, from Jim Schwartz and Frank Reich to Shane Steichen to Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio. OL coach Jeff Stoutland was key to winning both titles, with the line play being a team strength. Howie Roseman obviously deserves a ton of credit. He and his scouting staff built the rosters that did all this winning. That’s why he’s now considered the best GM in the league.
As crazy as it might sound, the foundation for this success goes back a lot farther than you might think. You can go back more than 30 years to see the origins of the kind of organization the Eagles would become. I think there are four key people who laid the foundation that carries on to this day.
JEFFREY LURIE
This one is kind of obvious. The Eagles didn’t have great ownership prior to Lurie’s arrival in 1994. Norman Braman had his moments, but struggled when free agency hit and you actually had to pay players. Lurie was different. He was a lifelong sports fan and wanted to be a hands-on owner. He wanted to bring something to the table to help his team win. That could be money, strategy or something as simple as being a good boss.
Lurie got the team too late to do anything about Rich Kotite so the 1994 season played out and led to his firing. Lurie was aggressive in his hunt for a new coach. He went hard after Jimmy Johnson, but JJ had no interest in living up north. Lurie then set his sights on Mike Shanahan and Ray Rhodes, the coordinators from the SB champ Niners. Shanny went to Denver so Rhodes got the Eagles job.
Lurie wanted to build a team around a franchise QB. As I wrote recently, he pushed for a trade that would have led to the drafting of Trent Dilfer. That didn’t pan out and the Eagles got stuck in QB purgatory for a while. Rhodes was able to take a roster filled with holes and plug in veterans and castoffs that somehow came together and won. He was 10-6 in his first season, winning a classic playoff game and Coach of the Year honors. 1996 got off to a great start, with the team going 7-2. They looked really legit after beating Dallas on the road. But the team went 3-4 down the stretch and lost a mudbowl wild card game to SF.
Things went downhill after that. They went 6-9-1 in 1997. Rhodes ability to plug holes and motivate veterans started to disappear. You can only get fired up by so many speeches before the magic wears off. Jon Gruden got hired by the Raiders to be their head coach following the season and that was the beginning of the end for Rhodes. 1998 was a disaster. Dana Bible was an awful OC and eventually lost playcalling duties. The offense scored 161 points for the entire year. Lurie fired Rhodes. The only good thing to come from that season was the Eagles having the #2 overall pick in a draft with multiple good QBs.
Lurie learned valuable lessons from Rhodes tenure. You cannot sustain success by focusing on veteran players, especially ones at the end of their careers. You must draft and develop. You need a pipeline of young talent. You also need a strong connection between the Personnel Dept and the coaching staff. They must work together to build the right roster.
The Eagles would make some hires that led to them being that kind of team and guess what…sustained success became a thing. It also helped to get QB Donovan McNabb in the 1999 draft. The team had their first franchise QB since the heyday of Randall Cunningham, a decade earlier.
Lurie has proven to be a great owner over the years. He spends big money to win. He hires well. He supports his coaches and management. There are always things to nitpick, but he’s done a lot more good than bad. Winning starts at the top. And Lurie isn’t distracted by his oil and gas businesses. He is focused on football, on the Eagles. And winning.
JOE BANNERÂ
Lurie hired his old friend to come to Philly and help run the Eagles. Banner’s specialty was the financial side of things. It didn’t take him long to become an expert on contracts and the salary cap. The cap was new to football and teams were trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. Banner very quickly got the Eagles to become one of the best teams at managing the cap.
Banner started handling contracts and player negotiations. The first great move came in 1996 when Banner signed restricted free agent CB Troy Vincent to an offer sheet. He structured the deal so Miami couldn’t match it. That enraged Jimmy Johnson, the Dolphins new coach. He didn’t want to lose a star player, but there was nothing he could do about it. Vincent became a foundational player for the Eagles.
The Eagles wanted to be key players in free agency during the Rhodes era, but most stars used the Eagles for bargaining leverage. Players used to go visit several teams and have them fight it out for who would pay the best. Vincent was from the Philly area and I think that is a key reason he signed. Most guys went elsewhere. After Andy Reid was hired and the team started to show signs of being legit, free agents started coming to Philly. The team made Jon Runyan the highest paid OL in the league in 2000 and that started a trend of free agent success for Banner and the team.
Banner came up with a strategy of re-signing players as early as possible. This would save the team money in the long run and it gave the players security and money earlier than waiting for free agency to come up. This idea worked well for several years and helped the team manage the cap well. Banner also pushed hard to focus on youth. He didn’t want to sign free agents past the age of 30. I’m sure he was scarred by watching some of the old-timers that Rhodes put out on the field.
Banner gave the organization an edge when it came to contracts and the cap. Roster management had become a true mixture of scouting and finance. You couldn’t spend endlessly. You needed a good strategy and long term vision. Banner and Lurie were in lockstep on this kind of thing. That helped the organization run well. The Eagles have been at the forefront of cap management ever since Banner arrived. He hired good people to work for him and help the team manipulate the cap to their advantage. We see that today with cash over cap spending and the use of void years. That’s allowed the Eagles to overspend and have an elite roster.
Banner worked for the Eagles from 1994-2012. I only have two real complaints with him. He failed to get seventh round pick DE Raheem Brock signed following the 2002 draft. Brock became a free agent and signed with the Colts. Brock started 104 games in his career and had 40.5 sacks. Such a frustrating loss. The bigger issue was over-negotiating with Brian Dawkins in 2008. You pay that guy to keep him a lifetime Eagle. Banner played hardball and I think regrets that to this day.
TOM MODRAKÂ
This is the first name that might surprise some people, but Modrak deserves more credit than he gets. Lurie and Banner weren’t happy with the direction of the Eagles following the 1997 season. They didn’t see a long term plan. The personnel dept was a mess. There were two franchises the Eagles looked up to, the Packers and the Steelers. Both were draft and develop organizations that had sustained success. So the Eagles hired Tom Modrak away from Pittsburgh to be their director of football operations in May of 1998.
One of the first key things Modrak did was focus on re-signing the team’s own players. Novel idea, right? For much of the 90’s, the Eagles saw good players walking out the door while they chased free agents from other teams. Modrak knew you needed to keep your good players first and foremost. Brian Dawkins, Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent all got contract extensions. That’s how you build a strong team. Keep your guys. That strategy remains in place to this day.
Modrak agreed with Lurie and Banner on the need to focus on youth. Football is a young man’s game. The team claimed a CB named Al Harris off the waiver wire just before the season started. He was a rookie that Tampa released in their final cuts. Harris played in 80 games for the Eagles from 1998-2002. Modrak claimed C Hank Fraley in 2000 when the Steelers cut him. Fraley played for the Eagles through 2005, starting 71 games. The Eagles added a struggling young kicker in 1999 after the Skins cut him. That was David Akers, who went to six Pro Bowls.
Modrak understood that player development was a key part of having young players. The Eagles sent Akers to NFL Europe and that helped get him on the right track. He became the team’s kicker in 2000 and never looked back. Fraley didn’t play in 2000, but started 15 games in 2001. DT Darwin Walker was released by the Cardinals after just one game in his rookie year. The Eagles snatched him up. He didn’t play in 2000, but became a good role player in 2001 and key starter in 2002. You need patience when you focus on youth. Rhodes and his cronies didn’t have much of that.
The Eagles drafted pretty well in the three classes that Modrak oversaw.
1999
QB Donovan McNabb
LB Barry Gardner
OG Doug Brzezinski
OL John Welbourn
S Damon Moore
FB Cecil Martin
2000
DT Corey Simon
WR Todd Pinkston
OL Bobbie Williams
2001Â
WR Freddie Mitchell
DE Derrick Burgess
RB Correll Buckhalter
TE Tony Stewart
QB AJ Feeley
All of those players started games for the Eagles. Some proved to be disappointing overall, but they weren’t Jon Harris type busts.
Modrak also had some good free agent additions. He found mid-level guys that could come in and help the Eagles as starters or key role players.
DT Paul Grasmanis
LS Mike Bartrum
TE Chad Lewis
LB Carlos Emmons
S Tim Hauck
DE ND Kalu
RB/RS Brian Mitchell
WR Charles Johnson
WR James Thrash
Modrak wasn’t peak Howie by any stretch, but he put the team in a good position to win and sustain success. As Andy Reid started to win and have success, he wanted more control. Modrak was let go after the 2001 draft. His ideas and strategies helped lay the foundation for Reid’s success, which certainly led to the Eagles keeping a lot of those ideas to this day.
ANDY REIDÂ
After Rhodes was fired, the Eagles made hiring the right coach a priority. They went hard after Mike Holmgren, but he chose to go to Seattle. That left Jim Haslett as the front runner. He was the DC for the Steelers and Modrak had a strong relationship with him. Lurie and Banner also wanted to meet with Andy Reid, a key part of the Packers success.
The team interviewed Haslett. I’m sure they liked a lot of what he had to say. Then came the interview with Reid. He brought an infamous blue binder with him that had all kinds of plans and long term strategies. The binder had practice schedules already mapped out. It had assistant coaches rated 1-10 from around the league. They saw a coach with a vision, which is what they wanted. They also probably preferred someone with an offensive background after the offensive disaster of 1998. Reid got the job.
Reid was only 40 when he was hired. That was young for a coach back in those days. The Eagles were taking a chance. Reid hadn’t even been a coordinator at the NFL level. Jumping up to head coach was a big move. Would he handle it well? Was he tough enough? Was he a good leader?
Reid absolutely proved to be ready for the leap. The Eagles lacked talent, but were generally organized and well run. Reid ran a tough Training Camp to get his team in shape and find out who really belonged. OL George Hegamin was dogging it one day. Reid had him stay after practice and drive a sled up and down the field. Reid then cut him the next day. Message sent. You play hard or you get gone.
Beyond playing hard and really buying in, Reid knew the Eagles needed a winning mentality. Losing wasn’t going to be accepted. DT Bill Johnson was joking around in the locker room after a 33-7 beatdown by the Carolina Panthers. He was cut the next day. You didn’t accept losing and you certainly didn’t joke around after getting dominated on the field. Another message sent.
One of the keys to Reid’s success was hiring great assistants. He hired Rod Dowhower and Jim Johnson as his coordinators. JJ became an Eagles legend for his great defenses. Reid’s coaching tree is pretty amazing.
John Harbaugh
Sean McDermott
Steve Spagnuolo
Doug Pederson
Ron Rivera
Several other guys got head coaching gigs, but had limited success. Spags wasn’t a good HC, but has proven to be a great DC and has multiple SB titles to show for it. Todd Bowles worked for Andy for one season so I didn’t list him above, but technically he’s part of the tree.
Reid embraced the passing game at a time when some teams still believed in running as the way to win. Reid threw too much at times, but he knew the future of football was through the air. While they did throw a lot, Reid still believed games were won and lost at the line of scrimmage. Reid was a former OL coach and made sure the Eagles had good blockers throughout his tenure. He didn’t ignore the DL. Johnson liked to have a lot of rushers at his disposal and Reid made sure he had them, whether draft picks or free agents. The focus on the LOS continues to this day.
Reid was heavily influenced by Packers GM Ron Wolf. That meant a real focus on the QB position. Reid made sure the Eagles had good depth at QB and were always on the lookout for more talent. Think about the 2002 season. The Eagles needed McNabb, Koy Deter and AJ Feeley to all play and start games. The team went 12-4. Not every player panned out. Mike McMahon was a disaster in 2005. Kevin Kolb showed potential, but didn’t become the player they expected. Jeff Garcia was terrific when he played for the Eagles. And then there was Michael Vick.
I was shocked when the Eagles signed Vick after he was released from prison. But Reid loved talented QBs and no one could argue that Vick wasn’t talented. He took over from Kolb/McNabb in 2010 and gave us an incredibly fun season. Things weren’t as good in 2011. The Eagles wanted to draft a QB in 2012 to eventually succeed Vick. They targeted Russell Wilson, but Seattle took him ahead of the Eagles pick. The Eagles pivoted to a big pocket-passer named Nick Foles. Injuries limited Vick to 10 starts in 2012 so Foles was thrust into action. He went just 1-5 as a starter, but showed potential. Foles went 8-2 as the starter in 2013 and 6-2 in 2014 before being dealt away. He then returned as a free agent in 2017 and delivered the Eagles first ever Super Bowl win. Not bad for a fourth round pick.
Reid’s strategy of always looking for QB help remains an Eagles priority to this day. The team drafted Jalen Hurts when they already had Carson Wentz as the starter. They have had Kenny Pickett, Tanner McKee, Gardner Minshew and Josh McCown as key backups in recent years. They just drafted Cole Payton at a time when they already had three QBs in place. Never turn down a chance to add a talented QB. It is the most important position in team sports. And you never know when you’ll need one. See Foles in 2017.
I think it is fair to say the Eagles remain heavily influenced by Reid’s ideas, even though he’s been gone for more than a decade. Roseman had good teachers in Reid and Banner and learned a lot from them. Lurie also learned a lot from Big Red and has made sure the good ideas stuck around. Now the Eagles need to go win a third SB so they can have the same amount as their former coach.
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