No, the Eagles Are Not the Best Team in the NFC
NFL.com released their post-draft power rankings several weeks ago, and as you might have guessed, the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles retained their spot at the top.
The national media loves the Eagles, but it’s not just the national media. A recent poll on PurplePTSD.com asked Vikings fans, “Which of the Vikings’ games in 2025 do you think will be most challenging?”
The winner, with a whooping 55.4% of the vote, was the home game against the Eagles. The Vikings’ trip to Ford Field to play the Lions came in a distant second, at 36.6%.
I’m not buying it.
The Eagles are a good team; there is no doubt about that. And unless JJ McCarthy turns out to be the next Patrick Mahomes, they will, in all likelihood, be better than the Vikings this season. But the reason we’re sitting here talking about the Eagles is because we’ve forgotten just how good the Lions were last season.
This isn’t unique to the Eagles: every year, we watch a team go on a deep playoff run and conclude that they must be the best team, they must have the best quarterback, they must have the best coaching, they must be able to do it again next season. After 2023, people were calling C.J. Stroud a top-five QB. This year, they’re saying it about Jayden Daniels. Next season, they’ll say it about whichever young, highly-drafted QB takes his team on a Cinderella run.
There is no doubt that postseason games are the most important: the best team in the NFL regular season gets nothing except a slight advantage in the playoffs. And to his credit, Eagles’ QB Jalen Hurts played his best football when it mattered most: his Conference Championship and Super Bowl performances were two of his best all season.
But here’s the problem: the plague of statistical noise caused by small sample sizes doesn’t go away just because playoff games matter more. Jalen Hurts’ Super Bowl QBR of 75.4 was impressive, but plenty of other QBs posted higher single-game QBR ratings throughout 2024, including Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Joe Flacco, and Jameis Winston: five guys who might never be starting NFL QBs again.
The data backs this up. In the plot below, I compared (1) point differential, (2) win percentage, and (3) number of playoff wins for a given NFL team against their win percentage the following season, going back to 2002. As the r^2 coefficients show, playoff wins are a significantly worse predictor of future success than win percentage or point differential.
And when we look at the 2024 point differential, it is clear who the real team to beat in the NFC is. The Eagles (+160) were very good, but the Lions (+222) were historically dominant. Furthermore, in contrast to the Eagles, the Lions’ dominance came primarily on the offensive side of the ball, which is generally more stable from year to year than defense.
The Lions’ season ended before the Eagles’ because the Lions had one very, very bad day at the worst possible time. Jared Goff threw three interceptions, WR Jameson Williams added another on a trick play, and the Lions’ defense was unable to stop Jayden Daniels.
But if you take away that one fluky game, there is little question which franchise had the more dominant team…or the better QB. Goff finished above Hurts in passer rating, QBR, completion percentage, yards, TDs, PFF grade, and more.
There is a case to be made that the Eagles have had a better offseason than the Lions, who lost not only their offensive coordinator (like the Eagles) but also their defensive coordinator. The Eagles’ draft was also widely lauded, as they added to an already stout defense with five defensive players selected in the first five rounds.
So, it’s very possible that the Eagles could take the step up to the top of the conference this season, but anyone who wants to overlook the Lions based on their ignominious end to 2024 does so at their own peril.