Eagles superlatives: 10 awards from a regular season that surpassed expectations

The 2024 regular season is in the books.

Finishing 14-3 as the No. 2 seed in the NFC this postseason, the Eagles outperformed most reasonable expectations set for them going into the year. Below, we’ll hand out 10 regular-season awards to explore what we learned about this season’s team over the last few months.

Even though Saquon Barkley’s pursuit of a significant piece of NFL history came up one game and 100 yards short, he still had a historic season in his first year with the Eagles. It’s hard to imagine what the Eagles offense would look like without him, often serving as both the steadying force for the group early in games and the unstoppable one in the fourth quarter with leads to protect.

While Jalen Hurts and Lane Johnson each could make a strong case for this award, Barkley gets the edge as the NFL’s leader in rushing yards and touches while serving as the focal point of the Eagles offense. According to Next Gen Stats, Barkley was responsible for 36.6% of the Eagles’ scrimmage yards this season while no other player in the league accounted for more than 30%.

It was only 10 months ago that Zack Baun signed a one-year deal with the Eagles and made the case for why he was open to being labeled a “hybrid” player capable of splitting time between the outside and off-ball linebacker positions. Sixteen games later, Baun has cemented himself as one of the best off-ball linebackers in the NFL with a Pro Bowl nod and a strong case to be on the All-Pro team next week as well.

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According to Next Gen, Baun leads the league in “stops,” a metric that tracks how often a player’s tackle ends in a favorable result for the defense and finished the season in the top 10 with 150 total tackles. Not bad for a converted edge rusher.

While it’s easy to point out Baun and Mekhi Becton as two of the Eagles’ most improved players, each of them signed with the team in the offseason. For a homegrown player worthy of the honor, Nakobe Dean stands out.

Dean earned the starting linebacker role opposite Baun with a strong training camp and stayed mostly healthy throughout the season. He made 15 starts after dealing with injuries in the first couple years of his career. He finished second on the team with 128 total tackles and added three sacks serving as an opportunistic blitzer in certain situations.

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For the first time since the Eagles selected him in the third round of the 2022 NFL draft, Dean looked like the player many envisioned him becoming during his days starring at Georgia.

Given his draft position and college production, it wasn’t hard to see Cooper DeJean eventually becoming the starting nickel cornerback in the Eagles’ secondary this season. But even those most bullish on him likely didn’t expect the second-round pick to play at such a high level so early in his career.

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According to Pro Football Focus, receivers managed just 7.3 yards per reception with him in coverage, which was tied for the third-lowest average for qualifying cornerbacks going into Week 18. Combine that with his capability as a tackler in the run and screen game, and it starts to become clear why the Eagles’ midseason defensive turnaround coincided with his insertion into the starting secondary.

Bryce Huff signed with the Eagles last offseason with the expectation that he’d fill in the starting edge rusher spot vacated by Haason Reddick. But he finished his first year with the team as a depth piece in a rebuilt rotation.

A wrist injury that required surgery halted some slight progress the 26-year-old was making midway through the year and it’s possible his learning curve in Vic Fangio’s read-and-react system could take longer than initially expected. Still, it’s only fair to acknowledge Huff hasn’t played up to his three-year, $51.1 million contract.

We’ll go with one offensive and one defensive player here.

Grant Calcaterra had to earn the No. 2 tight end spot in training camp and then spent most of the season filling in as the primary guy at the position in place of an injured Dallas Goedert. He started 12 games and managed 24 catches for 298 yards while also playing a thankless role as an inline blocker who’d often find himself at the point of attack for Barkley’s carries.

On the other side of the ball, Milton Williams was typically the beneficiary of opposing offensive lines keying in on Jalen Carter with frequent double teams. He was up to the task of punishing one-on-one blocks more often than not and finished the year with five sacks and seven tackles for loss in a contract year.

There were several strong candidates in this field, but the turnaround from the Eagles’ secondary from 2023 to 2024 gives the slight edge to Christian Parker over the equally deserving Jeff Stoutland and Bobby King.

The hastened development from Quinyon Mitchell and the aforementioned DeJean, along with a bounce-back season from veteran corner Darius Slay, stood in stark contrast from the struggles the secondary had last season before Parker’s arrival. Most Eagles teams have been built around a dominant defensive line, but Parker’s group has been the one setting the table for the defense more often this season.

It’s quite telling that the Eagles got three offensive linemen named to the Pro Bowl and it didn’t feel like enough.

While Barkley’s historic season required plenty of individual brilliance from the running back, he’d be the first to point out the vital role Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, Becton, and Lane Johnson played in his 2,005 rushing yards. He’d probably throw reserve linemen Fred Johnson and Tyler Steen in there as well.

Johnson and Mailata have formed the best tackle duo in the NFL capable of operating on respective islands. Dickerson has become one of the league’s best guards and has a vital role in caving in one side of the line for the team’s quarterback sneaks. And Jurgens has seamlessly slotted into the center position previously held by Jason Kelce, allowing the offense to continue calling concepts that require an athletic center capable of getting to the second level in a hurry.

More simply put, the foundation of the Eagles’ offensive system begins with having elite play along the offensive line, which is exactly what Stoutland’s group has delivered all year.

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Another offense-defense split is necessary.

Barkley’s reverse hurdle against the Jacksonville Jaguars was likely the signature moment of his historic season and his 176 rushing yards against his former team, the New York Giants, will be remembered, but the 255 rushing yards he managed against the Los Angeles Rams a few weeks later was the more dominant performance.

Like Barkley, Carter had a handful of games that could have earned performance of the year honors. The number of plays that jumped off the all-22 film in his game against the Baltimore Ravens stands out, though.

Carter finished with one sack, two quarterback hits, three tackles for loss, and probably a dozen clips of him rag-dolling members of a highly respected Ravens interior offensive line for fun.

C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s inclination for trash talk is well-documented by now. The downside of such chatter was on full display when he got ejected from the team’s loss to the Washington Commanders. But the fire the safety plays with was once again front and center the following week when he logged two interceptions against the Dallas Cowboys.

Carter has become a similarly capable tone-setter for the defense, although his method may involve more antics than Gardner-Johnson at or near the whistle. This clip from the Cowboys game serves as a meaningful illustration of how Carter can get under players’ skin.