Start fast.

Finish strong.

This is the action plan for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024 as they start the season off in São Paulo, Brazil against the Green Bay Packers. The long, arduous climb of a 17-game regular season begins on Friday night and after the players and coaches shake off the 10 ½-hour flight and get down to business, they know what a special way it is to start the football campaign.

“This is my first international trip and excited and know how much they care about sports in Brazil, so I’m excited about that. It’s Friday Night Football against the Green Bay Packers,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “You take me back to when I was a kid growing up and if you said to me, “Hey, Friday night, September whatever, 2024, you’re going to be the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles,’ — and I’m 10
years old – ‘and you’re playing the Green Bay Packers,’ I mean, I would’ve been pretty pumped about that and I’m still pumped about that.”

This is a new year and a new team and the Eagles are doing the best they can to wipe away the way the 2023 season ended – a 10-1 start went away as the Eagles lost six of their final seven games – and with that, they attacked the offseason in a big, big way.

From the very first day of the 2024 free agency through the NFL Draft and beyond, that’s exactly what the Eagles have done to reach this moment. They brought in experienced, proven coordinators to oversee the offense (Kellen Moore) and defense (Vic Fangio), added a star (Saquon Barkley) to the offensive running game and revamped the defense at all three levels with players who have had high levels of success in the league (Bryce Huff, edge; Devin White, linebacker; C.J. Gardner-Johnson, safety).

In the NFL Draft, general manager Howie Roseman exercised patience in the opening two nights and nabbed highly rated cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell in Round 1 and Cooper DeJean in Round 2, adding youth and depth to a coverage room already stocked with veterans and younger Eagles eager to earn more playing time. The construction of the roster – adding to a team that went 11-7 in 2023 and reached the postseason for the third straight year, albeit ending the campaign in disappointing fashion with a Wild Card Playoff Round loss to Tampa Bay – was done with an intentional mindset. With a framework of what they wanted to do and a profile of the kind of players the Eagles wanted to add, Roseman and his staff played it aggressively, confidently, creatively.

“We wanted to have a ‘mentality’ offseason. We wanted to bring in people here who had a chip on their shoulder because we felt like we had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder,” Roseman said. “Not in a bad way. Just in a way like we felt like we wanted to do whatever we could to put ourselves in the best possible situation for this year because we had a bad taste in our mouth the last year. It started in free
agency bringing in the free agents that we brought in, and we were looking for people in the draft who had that.”

And with that, it’s a new year and the Eagles have the same lofty goals. They’ve had change in the locker room – all-time greats center Jason Kelce and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox retired and edge rusher Haason Reddick, so important to the team in its Super Bowl run in the 2022 season, was traded to the New York Jets.

But the Eagles took care of their own, in addition to signing and adding via trade more than a dozen veterans in free agency and nine players in the NFL Draft. They kept defensive end Brandon Graham, who is back for a franchise-record 15 th season. Five players – offensive tackle Jordan Mailata, offensive guard Landon Dickerson, wide receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown and placekicker Jake Elliott – inked long-term contracts.

A strong core of players stays in place, and the Eagles added players they feel will upgrade the roster from one corner of the locker room to the other.

“I just think everybody is, “Hey, we’re starting again,” said Sirianni, who has compiled a 34-17 mark in three seasons, the highest win total in a head coach’s first three seasons in franchise history and a .667 winning percentage that is the best among all Eagles head coaches. “Obviously none of us are satisfied. All of us are pissed off of how that (2023) ended. But we’re working every single day in the sense of how do we get better today, how do we get better today, how do we get better today, and putting it one day at a time.

“I do sense that everybody has that feeling of unsatisfaction from last year. And that’s a good thing when you can control it, right? That’s our job is to make sure that we’re controlling it.”

Barkley was the headliner of the new Eagles, and he comes to Philadelphia after six seasons with the NFC East-rival New York Giants. A three-time 1,000-yard-plus rusher, a two-time Pro Bowl player and the 2018 NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year after accounting for 2,028 yards from scrimmage and 15 touchdowns, Barkley comes to an offense loaded with weapons. Quarterback Jalen Hurts made his second Pro Bowl last season after establishing franchise records for total touchdowns (38) and total yards (4,463) and he has a plethora of receiving options at his disposal with Brown (106 receptions, 1,456 yards and 7 touchdowns) in 2023, Smith (81-1,066-7) and tight end Dallas Goedert (59-592-3) forming as potent a trio as any in the league.

The offensive line has best-in-the-NFL players in Mailata at left tackle, Dickerson at left guard and Lane Johnson at right tackle. Third-year man Cam Jurgens is poised to become the starting center, with veteran Mekhi Becton starting at right guard against Green Bay.

There are a lot of new faces on defense, so Fangio – a 40-year-coaching veteran who is considered among the best defensive minds of all time – has to bring it all together, but the upside is very high with talented young tackles Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter leading the way up front with Graham and end Josh Sweat and Huff, and Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay the leader of the secondary.

Elliott earned his first All-Pro nod last season after making 30 of his 32 field goal attempts, and punter Braden Mann set Eagles records with his gross average (49.8 yards) and net average (43.9). Punt return man Britain Covey averaged 14.4 yards per return and was the only player in the league with multiple 50-yard punt returns.

A lot of pieces are in place. The Eagles have their sights set on being the best. It’s no wonder that Barkley, almost immediately, recognized what it’s like being here, in South Philadelphia, in an offense that has a galaxy of top options.

“Biggest thing that struck me is my first 7-on-7 huddle you see A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, and Jalen Hurts. It's not a bad group to be out there with,” Barkley said. “That’s not even including the offensive linemen. We have so much talent here, so much to work with.”

It begins on Friday night and this matchup against Green Bay is worth the International stage. The Packers went deep into the NFC playoffs last season and return quarterback Jordan Love, one of the league’s rising stars, to oversee the offense. Fireworks are expected on Friday. The Eagles hope to squash some of Green Bay’s, just enough to jump back on the team charter after roughly 53 hours on the ground in Brazil and return to Philadelphia.

“We’re all excited,” Hurts said. “This is what we’ve been working for. Our journey begins now.”