There’s something special about NFL schedule release day. It’s really the first time the next season seems real. The first time it seems like we’re closer to 2026 than to 2025. 

The Eagles’ schedule is the main topic in today’s Roob’s 10 Random Eagles Offseason Observations, but we’ll also get into some thoughts on Jalen Hurts in another new offense, a look back at the first Eagles-Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game and a legendary controversy it spawned and a glance at the greatest passing season ever by an NFL running back.

But we’ll start with the schedule and the annual inequities the Eagles have to deal with.

1. The NFL schedule makers never seem to do the Eagles any favors and this year’s schedule is really just ridiculous. Giving the Eagles four games – including three in a four-game stretch – against teams coming off byes is just simply unfair. I know it’s hard making a schedule and there are a lot of factors that go into it, but this is just plain wrong. Especially coming back from London and facing a Panthers team in Week 6 team coming off a bye. They also get the Cowboys in Week 7 off a bye, the Giants in Week 9 off a bye and the Cards in Week 14 off a bye. From Week 6 through Week 9, they have four games and three are against teams that didn’t play the week before. Including your biggest rival. Not to mention games on Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving Day. Come on, NFL. This is not fair or equitable. I don’t think the NFL is purposefully making things difficult for the Eagles, but it sure comes across that way year after year. The NFL always seems to make life as challenging as possible for the Eagles. And they keep winning anyway. 

2. The other really striking thing about the schedule is that with five prime-time games, a Saturday afternoon national game and Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve national games, the Eagles play eight times where they’ll be the only game taking place. That’s just about half their schedule where they’re playing a standalone game. That just shows you how much the networks want the Eagles on their air. They’re always one of the biggest stories in the league. They’ve been to two of the last four Super Bowls, they’ve been in the playoffs five straight years, they’ve got a quarterback with a national profile that people around the country want to watch, they’ve got an elite defense coached by a legend, they’ve got Saquon and they have a coach who is perennially on the hot seat, even though he’s got the highest winning percentage of any NFL coach who began his career in the last half century. The Eagles get huge ratings because they win, because they have big personalities, because there’s always some drama going on in Philly. This is the 20th consecutive season the Eagles will play at least four prime-time games, and during the last 19 years only the Cowboys (101) and Packers (91) have played more prime-time games than the Eagles (90). Turns out the rest of the country is just like us. They can’t get enough of the Eagles.

3. All that said, I don’t think this is a particularly easy schedule, although strength of schedule based on 2025 won-lost records makes it 7th-easiest. I think the Colts, Cowboys, Commanders and Giants will all be better than last year. But the key to me is the two three-game stretches against elite teams – the Bears, Rams and Jaguars from Week 3 through Week 5 and the Seahawks, Texans and 49ers from Week 14 through 16. The Bears, Rams and Jaguars were a combined 36-15 last year and the Bears, Rams and Jaguars were a combined 38-13. If the Eagles can go 3-3 against those six teams, they’ll have a chance for a very good season and a high seed. Because outside those two three-game blocks, they only play one other team all year that had a winning record last year, Week 11 against the Steelers, who haven’t won in Philly since 1965. From Week 6 through Week 14, the Steelers are the Eagles’ only opponent that had a winning record last year. That doesn’t guarantee anything this year, but it sure does look like a manageable stretch, with only one of eight games against a team that won more than it lost in 2025. Those eight opponents were a combined 53-82-2 last year. Split the six games against the Seahawks, Texans, 49ers, Bears, Rams and Jaguars and go 9-2 against everyone else gets you to 12-5, which isn’t a bad place to be.

4. W-W-W-L-W-W-W-L-W-W-L-W-W-L-W-L-W

5. Jalen Hurts Stat of the Week: If the Eagles beat Washington in Week 1, Jalen Hurts will become the first Eagles quarterback to win six season openers. He’s 5-0 in his career on opening day and tied with Donovan McNabb (5-5), Randall Cunningham (5-6) and Ron Jaworski (5-5) for most opening-day wins. Hurts is the only quarterback in NFL history to start at least five openers without a loss. The only other active QB to start at least three games on opening day without a loss is Brock Purdy, who’s 3-0. 

6. The Eagles’ current streak of five straight wins on opening day is their longest since they won six in a row from 1942 through 1947. They are 15-3 in their last 18 openers, and no other NFL team has more than 12 opening-day wins since 2008. 

7. It’s so silly to me that people are questioning whether Jalen Hurts can function in a new offense that asks him to do some different things. How many times do we have to point out that Hurts has played in six different offenses since he got here and he’s functioned at a high level in all of them. There was the Doug Pederson offense, the Nick Sirianni offense, the Shane Steichen offense, the Brian Johnson offense, the Kellen Moore offense and the Kevin Patullo offense. Has he ever had a bad year under any of them? Every year he has to learn a new offense and a new play caller and a new way of thinking and communicating, and he’s got the 3rd-most wins of any NFL quarterback since 2021, behind only a couple MVPs, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Why should this year be any different? Mannion and Hurts have already built a solid relationship and by all accounts Hurts has responded positively to everything Mannion has given him. Do you really think the first bad season of Hurts’ career will be under Sean Mannion? And it’s not like he hasn’t played under center or done play action. He has, and he’s done well with it. He’ll just be asked to do more of it this year. Hurts is going to have another very good year once again in 2026 and once again it’s going to drive all the haters crazy.

8. Keith Byars’ passing stats in 1990 were just absurd. Byars threw four passes on halfback options and all four went for touchdowns. He’s the only player in NFL history to throw four or more passes in a season and have them all result in touchdowns. Byars actually had more touchdown passes that year than Stan Humphries, who started five games for Washington, John Fourcade, who started five games for the Saints, and Mike Pagel, who started three games for the Browns. Best of all, the left-handed Byars had four more passing touchdowns in 1990 on four attempts than Bobby Hoying – also an Ohio State product – had in 1998 on 224 attempts. Incredibly, 12 other Eagles quarterbacks have thrown 100 or more passes in a season without throwing more than four touchdowns, most recently Vince Young in 2011 – four TDs in 114 attempts. 

9. If you weren’t an Eagles fan in 1989, you missed one of the all-time greatest Eagles-Cowboys controversies. It was Thanksgiving Day at Texas Stadium, and the Eagles were up 10-0 at halftime when linebacker Jessie Small leveled Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas on the opening kickoff of the second half. After the game, Zendejas – who began the season with the Eagles – accused Eagles coach Buddy Ryan of putting a bounty on him and other Cowboys and claimed Small pocketed $200 for the cheap shot on Louie. “I have no respect for the way they played the game,” Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson said after the Eagles won 27-0. “That takes away from the integrity of the game.” The Eagles were called for 13 penalties in the fight-filled game but Small wasn’t called for one for the Zendejas hit. After Small’s hit on Zendejas, the kicker gestured toward Ryan and the Eagles bench, screaming at his former coach and teammates. “I got a call on Friday from one of my friends (on the Eagles) who said, ‘They’re coming after you.’ You know how Buddy is.” The Eagles denied the bounty allegations – “That’s a lie,” Wes Hopkins said “A total fabrication” – and an NFL investigation cleared them. But 37 years later, the game lives on as the Bounty Bowl, a particularly fun episode in a long history of Eagles-Cowboys ill will.

10. I expect Eli Stowers to play a significant role as a pass catcher this year as a rookie, and expectations for rookie tight ends have changed a lot in recent years. Up until 2020 only nine rookie tight ends caught 50 passes. But in the last five years eight have done it, including six in the last three years. Things have changed when it comes to immediate production from tight ends, and every year more and more colleges go to pro-style offenses, which gets skill players more prepared for the NFL than ever. Stowers may not be much of a blocker, but he’s a kid who can run the whole route tree, knows how to get open and has soft reliable hands. I don’t know about 50 catches with all the other weapons the Eagles have, but Zach Ertz caught 36 passes as a rookie and Dallas Goedert caught 33, and I think that’s where Stowers will be.