Where does the 2024 regular season rank among all-time Eagles seasons?

The NFL playoffs are finally here.

After 18 games and 19 weeks, the Philadelphia Eagles will begin their quest to earn their second Super Bowl title when they welcome the Green Bay Packers to Lincoln Financial Field next Sunday at 4:30pm ET. They will do so after piling up a franchise record-tying 14 wins and another NFC East crown, as well as the No. 2 seed in the NFC.

By virtue of their 14-3 record this season, the franchise now has an all-time win-loss record that is just one game under .500 (638-639). That’s insane for those of us who began following the team during the Buddy Ryan era, and especially for those who remember the dark times before Dick Vermeil changed the trajectory of the Eagles in the late 1970s.

Unfortunately, the addition of the seventh wild card team per conference means the Eagles do not have the first round bye that had historically been given to both the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds in the conference. Nevertheless, the Eagles are considered a favorite by some to win their three playoff games (the first two guaranteed to be at the Linc) and get back to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.

Most of this week will be spent discussing the Packers and whether their young quarterback Jordan Love will play after banging his funny bone during Green Bay’s loss to the Bears on Sunday, and whether Jalen Hurts will clear the concussion protocol in time to practice this week and play on Sunday. We’ll have a multitude of storylines to chew on, but before we do that, I wanted to put the 2024 regular season into perspective.

It was, quite possibly, the best Eagles regular season we’ve ever seen, and who’d have thought we’d be saying that so quickly after the incredible ‘22 season? In fact, there have been seven seasons in which the Eagles have won at least 12 games: 1980, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2017, 2022 and ‘24.

This year’s Eagles could very easily have gone 16-1. Two of their losses came after a star player dropped easy catches that would have iced games late in the fourth quarter (Barkley’s drop vs. Atlanta, Devonta Smith’s gaffe in Washington). The only team to outplay the Eagles this season was in Week 4 against the Bucs in Tampa.

You could argue the Eagles probably should have lost the Carolina game, their victory secured thanks to a dropped touchdown pass by Xavier Legette, or should have lost the New Orleans game, only winning thanks to a blown defensive assignment that allowed Dallas Goedert to haul in a 61-yard catch with less than two minutes left. That said, the Eagles were the superior team every time they took the field in every game except one.

So it got me thinking. Was this the best Eagles regular season we’ve ever seen? It’s a difficult question to parse because there are so many factors to consider.

Record
Strength of schedule
Expectations heading into the season
Margin of victory
Point differential
Individual player achievements

Different teams play in different eras, so it’s important to look at as many metrics as possible. Thankfully, Pro Football Reference does a great job quantifying some of these metrics. Below is a table of the seven Eagles teams that achieved at least 12 wins in a season and their ranking in some of these key areas.

Eagles Best Individual Seasons

Year

Wins

Losses

Point Diff

Off Rank (Yds)

Def Rank (Yds)

MOV

Strength of Schedule

SRS

Year

Wins

Losses

Point Diff

Off Rank (Yds)

Def Rank (Yds)

MOV

Strength of Schedule

SRS

2024

160

9.4

-1.2

7.7

2022

133

7.8

-1.3

6.5

2017

162

10.1

-0.7

9.4

2004

126

7.9

-2.3

5.6

1980

162

10.1

-0.4

9.7

2002

174

10.9

-2.6

8.3

2003

5.4

-1

4.4

With regard to Strength of Schedule (SoS), PFR says the higher the number, the more difficult the strength of schedule. Negative numbers generally mean a softer schedule. SRS is a metric called Simple Rating System, and takes into account a team’s point differential and strength of schedule to assign a rating to each team, with 0.0 considered average. The difference in two teams’ SRS ratings can be considered to be a point spread should they play each other, disregarding home field advantage.

In terms of point differential, the 2004 Eagles were the best of the bunch, outscoring opponents by 174 points. Those Birds were the No. 1 seed in the conference and achieved that despite losing Donovan McNabb and Koy Detmer to injuries late in the regular season, needing A.J. Feely to take them home down the stretch. That’s also the season McNabb and the Eagles tragically fell to the Buccaneers in the NFC Championship Game at the Vet. The ‘24 Eagles rank 4th among the teams above in point differential. The ‘02 Birds were also the best in terms of margin of victory, averaging 10.9 points per win. This year’s 9.4 average margin of victory was 4th-best.

In terms of total offense (yards), only the 2022 Eagles piled up more yardage than the ‘24 Birds. Defensively, this year’s squad was No. 1 overall in the NFL in yardage allowed, the first time since the legendary 1991 Gang Green defense that they’ve pulled off that feat. The ‘22 Eagles, however, finished 2nd, so in terms of offense and defense, the squad from two years ago was probably a tad more accomplished, but not by much.

However, many of these numbers lack context. Each team faced a different level of difficulty when it came to their opponents. The 1980 Eagles that lost to the Raiders in the Super Bowl faced the most difficult schedule of the seven, with the Super Bowl champion 2017 group not far behind. The ‘24 Eagles had the 4th-toughest strength of schedule of the seven teams we’re discussing.

That brings us to the Simple Rating System. This number would appear to be the best one to use if we’re looking for a single metric to compare different seasons, as it takes most of the information we were just looking at and factors it all in together. According to SRS, the best regular season was achieved by the ‘80 Birds, followed closely by Doug Pederson’ ‘17 Super Bowl champs. The ‘24 Eagles, again, ranked 4th.

It’s clear looking at the numbers that the ‘80 team, given the teams they played and all the other metrics, was likely the best of all the 12+ win Eagles teams. The 2017 team, in my mind, was second-best, and probably would have gone 15-1 had they not locked up the top seed in the conference with two games left on the schedule.

The 2002 Eagles are a terribly underrated team. They lacked star power at wide receiver, but that Andy Reid-led group was head and shoulders better than everyone else they played that season, except for the Steelers in the middle of the year and Tampa at the end of it.

I believe this 2024 team is better than the ‘22 team that lost to Patrick Mahomes two years ago, and we didn’t mention the ‘03 team all that much because they came in last in virtually every one of these categories. Their record didn’t reflect the fact they weren’t nearly as good as the other six teams on this list.

So, where do you rank the 2024 Eagles?

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