Chaos reigns in the NFL at head coach and at quarterback. For the Eagles, 2024 has already been won.

The worst place you can be as an NFL franchise is the place where half of them are. That is, with no place to turn and no choice but to turn somewhere. Each time you do it, you are one turn closer to being back where you started. You know the old saying: Two wrongs don’t make a right, but four rights make a circle, and eight rights make the Jets.

It is a remarkable thing to survey the NFL landscape from the height at which the Eagles are perched. More than half of the league figures to enter 2025 with either a new coach, a new quarterback, or both. That includes three teams that have already fired their head coaches (Saints, Bears, Jets), another two who might as well have (Jaguars, Cowboys), and two more whose decision is closer to imminent than not (Raiders, Giants).

It does not include the one team that would gain the most from a coaching change (the Bengals). Nor does it include the two former Eagles assistants who have somehow managed to find themselves on the hot seat despite well outperforming their talent over the last couple of years (Jonathan Gannon with the Cardinals and Shane Steichen with the Colts). The Patriots’ Jerod Mayo probably warrants a mention somewhere in here, as well.

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All told, no fewer than six, possibly up to 10, and most likely seven or eight of the NFL’s 32 teams will be looking for a new head coach this offseason. That is a mind-boggling number when you consider that, at the start of the season, more than half of the league’s coaches were in their first, second, or third seasons at the helm. Even more so when you consider the second set of dominoes that will fall.

The real complexity of the upcoming offseason lies in a series of novel sets of characters at the game’s most important — and most bedeviling — position. We are living in unprecedented times at quarterback, at both ends of the spectrum.

Group A: Dead Men Walking, Dead Money Sitting (4)

The Giants have already eaten $40-plus million by releasing Daniel Jones. The Falcons and Browns will have a similar calculation to make with Kirk Cousins having been supplanted by first-round pick Michael Penix Jr. and Deshaun Watson injured and on the outs in Cleveland. It’s hard to imagine the Jets choosing to saddle their new head coach with another year of the Aaron Rodgers experience. But they would need to eat some considerable coin. Plus, they are the Jets.

Group B: Let’s Play Charades! (3)

If Russell Wilson was better paid, and Geno Smith was of better pedigree, both might find themselves in Group A. Instead, they are here, in Group B, alongside the Cardinals’ Kyler Murray, forming a trio of veteran quarterbacks who are close to exhausting the benefit of the doubt. Murray and the Cardinals have little choice but to pretend for another year, given the financial reality of his contract ($63 million in dead money for 2025). Wilson and Smith, meanwhile, have both spent stretches in which they’ve appeared to be testaments to the situational nature of the quarterback position. Mostly, though, we’ve seen their ceiling: a .500 season and an early playoff exit, assuming they are paired with a good defense and a good coach.

Now, the two most interesting groups:

Group C: Neither Mr. Right nor Mr. Right Now ... right? (4)

For most of this season, it has been difficult to watch Will Levis (Titans), Bryce Young (Panthers), or Anthony Richardson (Colts) and see even a glimpse of a player who might thrive in different circumstances or at a latter stage of his development. The flashes of physical brilliance that Richardson has shown have come at a 1:10 ratio with the flashes of complete incompetence. Conversely, Young has looked eminently competent in his second act in Carolina, except without any of the flashes of physical brilliance one typically expects out of a franchise quarterback. It’s tough to have Brock Purdy as your ceiling when Brock Purdy is also in this group.

Except ...

Then we have our fourth group.

Group D: The Counterfactuals (3)

I’m not sure how anybody can watch what Sam Darnold is doing with the Vikings and have any faith in their ability to render definitive judgment upon a quarterback. Darnold arrived in Minnesota having compiled a 21-35 record for three teams over six NFL seasons. The Vikings themselves used the No. 10 overall pick on Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy less than three months after signing Darnold. Yet, here is Darnold, with 4,153 passing yards, 35 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and a 106.4 quarterback rating. And there are the Vikings: 14-2, a win away from the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.

If it is not Darnold with the No. 1 seed, it will be Jared Goff, foisted upon the Lions along with two first-round picks, jettisoned by a team he had already quarterbacked to the Super Bowl. Whatever you thought of Goff, you thought of his departure from the Rams as “the Matthew Stafford trade.” Yet, here we are.

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And, there are the Bucs, with Baker Mayfield, maybe the hottest quarterback in the NFL not named Joe Burrow or Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson or ... OK, let’s use a different phrase. Mayfield has been very good, very believable, far more so than he was during his five seasons with the Browns, Panthers, and Rams. His numbers are eerily similar to the rest of the trio’s:

Goff: 4,398 yards, 36 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 113.6 rating

Mayfield: 4,279 yards, 39 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 107.6 rating

Darnold: 4,153 yards, 35 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 106.4 rating

It’s notable that two of the three spent stints with Carolina, which this season benched Young for Andy Dalton, whom Cincinnati took almost a decade to quit, just before drafting Burrow. It’s also notable that Panthers coach Dave Canales has his job in large part because of Mayfield’s performance when he was the Bucs’ offensive coordinator.

You have to wonder how Mayfield and Darnold shape the Panthers’ worldview. Or the Jets, who have watched Darnold and Smith quarterback teams to the playoffs. It is a weird year for NFL metaphysics. I mean, the Steelers are in the playoffs with Wilson, and the Broncos might be there with Bo Nix. Never before has the interplay between coach, quarterback, and organization appeared so significant and also so difficult to pin down.

One thing I do know: The Eagles are fortunate to contemplate it all from a safe distance. At this time last year, many of us thought they might be right there in the thick of the muck.

Whatever happens in the playoffs, the Eagles have already achieved something. There is a level of stability here that did not exist last year. The coach has proved himself in the most difficult of circumstances. The general manager has shown that he can build a defense. We’ll know a lot more about the quarterback after these playoffs. But take a look around: It can get a lot worse.