It was a season, and more specifically, a postseason run, that we will never forget.
Five weeks of do-or-die football. Four playoff games. Three at the friendly confines of Lincoln Financial Field and a fourth played in front of a decidedly raucous pro-Eagles crowd in New Orleans. With each game in these playoffs, the Birds’ dominance grew, culminating in a historic beatdown of the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59.
Historians will debate which Super Bowl victory was more satisfying. In Super Bowl 52, the underdog Eagles were trying to overcome a decades-long championship drought with a back-up quarterback against Tom Brady’s Patriots. Last Sunday night, their dismantling of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid indicated the Eagles could be on the cusp of a dynasty of their own.
Both will have their own place in our hearts, but what we just saw over the last five weeks was record-breaking dominance.
They scored more points in the conference championship round and Super Bowl combined than any team in NFL history. Yep, more than the 1989 49ers, 1985 Bears, 2007 Patriots, and any of the other high-scoring offenses in the league’s 59-year history of playing this game, saving their absolute best for the two biggest games of the season.
So before I offer my official top-10 ranking of the best moments from the Eagles 2024/25 playoff run, let me give you my favorite highlight from Super Bowl 59 that did not make this list. To the casual observer, this appears to be a highlight of Jeremiah Trotter, Jr. celebrating a tackle on a kickoff return late in the game, when in actuality, it’s actually a Jake Elliott highlight. Just watch until the end.
Oh, and one more honorable mention.
Thinking of all the work, sweat and effort football players put into this game, the time away from his wife and young children, his time in New York where he was called a “bust” and almost certainly felt like his career was slipping away from him. For him to come to Philadelphia, get coached up by Jeff Stoutland, work his tail off and become one of the best offensive linemen in football and winning a Super Bowl title, well, those emotions say it all.
Now, onto the top-10.
10. Oren Burks’ Opening Kickoff Fumble vs. Packers
First play of the playoffs. Oren Burks, at this point a back-up linebacker and special teams player before ultimately taking ably taking over for an injured Nakobe Dean over the final three playoff games, makes a statement before the postseason is more than five seconds old by smashing into All-Pro kick returner Keisean Nixon on the opening kickoff and forcing a fumble, setting up a Jalen Hurts-to-Jahan Dotson touchdown that gave the Eagles a blink-and-you-missed-it 7-0 lead in their wild card match-up against the Packers.
It was a portent of things to come.
9. Tush Push Destroys the Commanders
If Frankie Luvu being an idiot is what gets the Tush Push banned from the NFL, there is no justice in the world.
The game was over by this point, but in an NFC Championship Game that featured a slew of turnovers created by the defense and was such a blowout for most of the second half, this was one of the truly memorable moments of this game. Highest of comedy and, in my mind, terrific television.
8. Jake Elliott and Brandon Mann Beat the Snow
Super Bowl 59 will always be the game we remember most from the 2024 season, but the snow game against the Rams in the Divisional Round will always be a close second. There are two other plays from this game on this list, but we would be remiss if we didn’t include the stellar job kicker Jake Elliott and punter Braden Mann did in successfully executing multiple field goals during a snowstorm.
I can barely walk from my front door to the car when there’s snow on the ground, so it was impressive to watch Mann flawlessly handle a couple high snaps and place the ball down expertly, and for Elliott to keep his footing on these very difficult kicks. The first snow kick came with 2:24 left in the 3rd quarter and gave the Birds a 16-13 lead, his second gave them a 19-15 cushion and then his third, the most difficult of the three, was a 37-yarder that made it 22-15 with just over six minutes left in the game.
The Eagles needed all of those field goals and, had Elliott missed any of them, the Rams may have pulled off the upset.
7. Goedert’s Stiff-Arm for the Ages
With Philadelphia holding a 10-3 lead late in the 3rd quarter, Hurts found his tight end Dallas Goedert on a quick-hitting pass in the flat that Goedert caught, turned upfield and then abused cornerback Carrington Valentine with three successive stiff-arms for a 24-yard TD and a 17-3 lead that felt much larger than that with the way the defense was playing that day.
6. Hurts Takes Off
We forget that coming into the playoffs, Jalen Hurts had missed the final two games of the regular season with a concussion. For much of the wild card round against Green Bay, it appeared as if he was still finding his footing a bit, but in the divisional round against the Rams, Hurts displayed some Saquon Barkley-like breakaway speed of his own on this ridiculous 44-yard TD run.
Last year, Hurts never seemed to have that extra burst that made him so dangerous in 2022. This year, it was back and on full display as the Eagles jumped on L.A. early and showed what makes #1 so dangerous.
5. Jalen Carter Calls Game Against Rams
The Rams came really, really close to pulling off a shocking comeback in the divisional round. It was way too close for comfort. After Barkley seemingly iced the game with a long touchdown run (we’ll get to that in a moment), Matthew Stafford led the Rams on a lightning-quick TD drive that made it 28-22 with 2:48 left. After an Eagles 3-and-out, Los Angeles got the ball back and was driving for the go-ahead score, with the ball at the PHI14 and 1:14 left on the clock.
With the defense suddenly reeling and facing a 3rd-and-2, Carter made an unbelievable move and beat the center for an unobstructed path to Stafford, burying him for a nine-yard loss. Stafford’s 4th-and-11 pass sailed high and wide and the Eagles were on to the NFC Championship Game.
Had Carter not delivered that sack, it might have been the Rams facing the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game.
4. Barkley’s NFC Championship Opening Statement
On their opening drive, the Washington Commanders put together an 18-play drive that ate up more than seven minutes on the clock. They had to squeeze out every yard they earned, and converted two fourth down plays on the drive, but chickened out on a key 4th-and-3 decision at the end and kicked a 34-yard field goal to give them a 3-0 lead.
In response, the Eagles took about 20 seconds to score the game’s first touchdown, as Saquon Barkley spun, twisted and galloped his way to a 60-yard touchdown on their first play from scrimmage, the first of three rushing touchdowns for him and an insane SIX on the day for the Eagles’ offense.
3. The DeVonta Dagger
Trying to organize these top three is virtually impossible, so here’s my best stab at it.
Super Bowl 59 was over at this point. Everyone in the stadium thought the Eagles were going to sit on the ball, run Saquon Barkley a bunch of times and eat as much clock as possible. But Kellen Moore, Nick Sirianni, Hurts and the offense wanted to put the nail in the coffin or, as Fox announcer Kevin Burkhardt aptly called it “the dagger.”
It’s pretty cool when a single play gets a nickname, and the DeVonta Dagger will go down in history with The Philly Special as an Eagles “named play” we will never forget.
2. Saquon’s Run in the Snow
Snow makes everything more special, and when the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year took the handoff from Jalen Hurts with a little less than five minutes left in the 4th quarter of the divisional round against the Rams, the Eagles were nursing a seven-point lead and looking to fend off L.A. for just a few minutes more.
Instead, Saquon did this.
It is an iconic run that will forever be immortalized by this NFL Films clip, which harkened back to the John Facenda days and featured old school music and Barkley’s wide-open eyes as he dashed to the end zone in a sea of white and green.
For many Eagles fans, when they think of the 2024 Eagles season, this will be the moment they remember forever. Except perhaps for…
1. Cooper’s Pick Six
The Eagles were dominating Super Bowl 59 on the field, but not on the scoreboard. Leading just 10-0 late in the second quarter, the Chiefs had yet to establish anything remotely close to competence, but there was still the feeling in the air that Patrick Mahomes could will his team to victory at any point. We’d seen him do it before, in Super Bowl 52, when he was largely flat and the K.C. offense wasn’t doing much against Jonathan Gannon’s defense, either.
This was the turning point of Super Bowl 59.
After two straight sacks that forced Mahomes into a 3rd-and-17, DeJean’s pick-six was the moment you realized the Eagles weren’t losing this game. It was the moment you realized it would take a miracle for the Chiefs to claw their way back and figure out a way to win.
Sure, Zack Baun’s interception moments later, followed by Hurts’ TD throw to A.J. Brown, made it 24-0 and further cemented the Eagles’ grip on this contest, but there’s no arguing Cooper’s INT was the pivotal moment of the Super Bowl, and the most most memorable moment of the 2024 Eagles’ incredible postseason run.
