Eagles Establishing Brand Under Jeffrey Lurie: 'The New Norm'

Jeffrey Lurie's Philadelphia Eagles have had trouble with branding over the years but been very consistent on the field.

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Eagles have developed into one of the more well-regarded organizations in the NFL during the Jeffrey Lurie era but there have been some hiccups along the way when it comes to branding.

Lurie himself once jumped the gun with the “gold standard,” and general manager Howie Roseman set off a feeding frenzy with “quarterback factory.” In between those two hubristic self-aggrandizements was coach Doug Pederson’s contribution to the haughtiness after a Super Bowl LII victory: “the new normal.”

"This is our new norm. To be playing football in February,” the now-Jacksonville coach first proclaimed to the adoring masses at the organization’s championship parade.

Those weren’t empty words either because the phrase became the literal branding to the point it was plastered throughout the NovaCare Complex.

Without the benefit of hindsight, the sentiment hardly seemed outrageous at the time. The Eagles were the NFL champions with a quarterback in Carson Wentz who was coming off an MVP-level season, albeit with an ACL and LCL injury that short-circuited the pursuit of the award, and the best closer since Mariano Rivera in Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles.

Getting back to the big game seemed like a reasonable goal, and even though it never came to pass, Pederson did have his team playing in the postseason the next two years before things derailed in 2020.

A quick reboot away from Pederson and Wentz to coach Nick Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts paid off last season to the tune of an NFC Championship before coming up a field goal short of the powerful Kansas City Chiefs.

That’s two Super Bowls and five playoff berths in six years with the pandemic season proving as the outlier.

Label that run however you want but that’s a norm or standard few others have been able to match.

Pre-Lurie, the Eagles won two NFC East championships over a 24-year period. Since he bought the team in 1994, the organization has won 10 division crowns and made 17 playoff appearances.

Every coach Lurie has hired from Ray Rhodes to Andy Reid to Chip Kelly to Pederson right up to Nick Sirianni made the playoffs at least once and three of the five have taken the Eagles to the big game.  

Another deep run is expected in the 2023 season and anything less than that would be a disappointment.

Plenty can go wrong as the history of Pederson’s Eagles can attest but this Philadelphia team seems equipped to handle high expectations because the QB, MVP runner-up Hurts, seems particularly well-grounded and this group is still searching for the ultimate prize, not basking in the glory of it.

More so, the NFC offers less competition than the AFC, at least on paper, meaning the Eagles’ path back to the Super Bowl should feature fewer land mines than Kansas City’s.

Turns out Philadelphia’s real “new normal” started back in 1999 after Lurie had gained his footing as an NFL owner. That's when he and then-team president Joe Banner pulled the trigger on Andy Reid as that head coach.

From that point forward over nearly a quarter of a century, the Eagles have been relevant more often than not.

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-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