The Philadelphia Eagles just finished one of the most dominating championship runs of this century, culminating in a 40-22 dismantling of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in Super Bowl 59.

While the Eagles are one of the most talented teams in the NFL, with elite players at every level on both sides of the ball, they are far from an all-star team. All-star teams are simply collections of great talent. The Eagles are more than that. They were assembled with an identity in mind, and the pieces they’ve added have been acquired or developed accordingly. Philly’s championship isn’t “lightning in a bottle.” They didn’t get lucky, or get hot, or simply out-talent the Chiefs. They won because they had a vision for who this team would become, and they executed it brilliantly.

Start with Saquon Barkley. The Eagles didn’t sign him last off-season simply because they believed he was a great running back. They saw him as a perfect piece for what they want to do on offense — control the clock with their run game, use it to set up the pass, and hit home runs when defenses over-committed to stop one or the other. With elite receivers on the outside in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, and an offensive line that ranked among the league’s best, Philly recognized that Barkley could be the missing ingredient to a championship-caliber offense.

The establishment of their identity began long before they acquired Barkley, however. It started in the construction of that line. Four of Philly’s five starters up front were drafted by the Eagles. They have one of the best line coaches in the NFL in Jeff Stoutland, and they gave Stoutland big, athletic pieces with which to work. Stoutland, who helped turn Jason Kelce, an undersized 6th Round pick from the University of Cincinnati, into a Hall of Fame center, molded unheralded guys like Jordan Mailata (7th Round pick) and Mekhi Becton (labeled as a bust with the Jets) into dominant linemen, too.

Once the line was in place, Philly went to work to strengthen their skill position groups. In 2020, their most productive wide receiver was Greg Ward. Remember him? Me neither. Clearly they weren’t good enough outside to challenge for a title, so they spent a 1st Round pick on the speedy Smith and immediately got better.

They didn’t stop there, though. The following off-season, they made a bold trade with Tennessee, sending 1st and 3rd Round picks to the Titans for Brown, who at just 24 years of age was already one of the best receivers in the game. In one calendar year, they went from having one of the weakest wide receiver rooms in the league to one of the best by identifying their weaknesses and aggressively pursuing a solution.

So it went with Jalen Hurts at quarterback. Many in Philly thought Hurts was a wasted pick when the Eagles selected him in the 2nd Round in 2020. They had a young quarterback in Carson Wentz. Why spend another high pick at the position? Inside the organization, however, the Eagles knew Wentz was not the long-term answer. They wanted leadership at the position as much as ability, and in Hurts they believed they had both. Parting ways with Wentz was another bold move. And like the trade for Brown, it paid big dividends.

Which brings us back to Barkley. In 2022, Miles Sanders had rushed for over 1,000 yards for the Eagles. In 2023, D’Andre Swift had done the same. Philly was so good up front it seemed they could get could get solid production out of almost any serviceable back. Did they need to spend the money on a player of Barkley’s caliber at a time when the running back position was being devalued across the league?

Seems like a silly question in retrospect.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Eagles made similar investments. They signed one of the best coordinators in the game in Vic Fangio to implement his system, then acquired the right talent to make it work.

They spent their top two picks on corners in last year’s draft, landing two studs in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, both of whom excel in Fangio’s zone-heavy scheme. They signed the largely-unknown Zach Baun, who had never had more than 30 tackles in a season through four years in New Orleans, to man the middle of their linebacking corps. They liked Baum because he was rangy and could play well in space, something Fangio valued. Baun became an All-Pro. On the defensive line, they mixed premium draft picks with savvy free agent signings to assemble a group capable of pressuring quarterbacks and allowing Fangio to play coverage with his back-seven. Philly’s front four simply assaulted the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

Everywhere you turn, on both sides of the ball, Philly has examples of players who were acquired and developed with a specific purpose in mind.

The Pittsburgh Steelers should take note.

The Steelers claim to have an identity. On offense, it’s a lot like Philly’s. Be great up front, run the football to control clock, set up the pass with the run. But the Steelers are a long way from living the identity they claim. That’s because the moves they’ve made the past few years feel detached from who they say they are.

In hiring Arthur Smith to be their coordinator, Pittsburgh brought in a veteran coach with a preferred style of play. Smith, in previous stops in Tennessee and Atlanta, favored big personnel and a zone-based run scheme. That’s all well and good. Unfortunately, the Steelers didn’t build a roster that accommodated this style.

Najee Harris has never been a great zone back. He lacks the vision and burst that some of the great zone runners have. Think Le’Veon Bell, dancing behind his linemen, searching for a hole, then exploding through it once it emerged. Harris has more of a gap mentality. Show him where to run, give him a puller or lead blocker to pave the way, and let him get downhill. Those types of runs were non-existent in Smith’s offense.

Pittsburgh’s lack of a more established receiver to play opposite George Pickens hamstrung the offense, too. Defenses were not afraid to drop an extra safety into the box to defend the run because they weren’t worried about getting beat deep away from Pickens. If you want to run the football well, you must be prepared to take advantage of the one-high looks you will get from your opponents. Too often, the Steelers could not do so.

At quarterback, a run-heavy team like Pittsburgh needs a good deep-ball thrower. The Steelers found one in Russell Wilson. But they also need someone who can get outside the pocket when all of those runs draw defenses in tight. Wilson is no longer that player, and the absence of pocket-movement, particularly down the stretch, limited the effectiveness of the passing game. The Steelers had a player at quarterback in Justin Fields who could operate outside the pocket, and who threw a good deep ball as well. But once they committed to Wilson as their starter in Week 6, they refused to look back.

For the sake of brevity, I won’t expound on the similar disconnect between the identity of the defense and the product on the field. But there are major issues on that side of the ball, too.

As we head into the off-season, Pittsburgh should study Philadelphia’s game-plan carefully. Not their X-and-Os, necessarily, but the way they built their team. The Eagles did a great job of putting in place and developing players who would fit the identity they desired. A similar achievement would do wonders for Pittsburgh in their pursuit of post-season success.

Follow me on Twitter @KTSmithFFSN, and check out my Call Sheet Daily podcast that runs Monday-Friday at 10 AM on all major platforms. A link to Monday’s episode on the most dominant post-season teams of the past 25 years is below.