This is the scene the day after every game for the Philadelphia Eagles: All 53 players on the active roster take their seats in the auditorium in the team’s Complex, and with them are the 16 players on the practice squad as well as any players on the injured list.
It is film time. Review day. Watching the game film – “The eye in the sky doesn’t lie” is the NFL’s axiom – with everybody present, with coaches having seen the game once, twice, three times and more, rewinding multiple times on every play and taking notes specific to their position groups.
For those who played in the game, it is the truth serum. Nothing is more real than the game film. The hot takes of the media are irrelevant – this is the real deal. The players hear from Head Coach Nick Sirianni and the offensive and defensive coaches on what they did well and what they need to correct.
It is an intense and revealing time for the team as they put the previous game to bed, and it is also a lonely and unsettling time for players. Only 48 players dress on game days in the NFL, and not all of them play each week. The players on the practice squad get a workout in prior to the game and then stand on the sidelines in warm-up clothes.
“You’re sitting there watching the game and knowing that you didn’t get in much, if at all, so you kind of feel like you’re not contributing,” says second-year offensive lineman Drew Kendall. “We all want to feel like we’re part of it, win or lose. It can weigh on a lot of guys’ minds that you don’t hear your name called and you know you play well.”
Here is where Connor Barwin’s role on the team comes into focus. An NFL standout for 10 seasons – including four with the Eagles from 2013 to 2016 – Barwin is the team’s head of football development and strategy. He made the transition from NFL player to front office executive after his playing career ended in 2018, joining the Eagles as a special assistant to General Manager Howie Roseman in 2020. He became the director of player development in 2022. He’s had his current title since 2024, but his focus is not necessarily on quarterback Jalen Hurts or running back Saquon Barkley or any of the stars of the team.
It is on those in reserve roles – roster-bubble players who need improvement to find their footing on the team whether they are early in their careers or here as veterans from around the league – and it is one of the hidden reasons the Eagles have had so much success.
“Think about the players in this league: stars in college. They’ve always had the attention. When you don’t get it, it can play with your head,” says Barwin, an All-Pro and Pro Bowl player in 2014 who led the NFC with 14 ½ quarterback sacks as a linebacker/edge player. “Our role in many ways is to focus on 25 guys who don’t play every single week. We want to make sure they’re getting the same coaching, the same feedback, the same support as the 45 players who do play. Position coaches, rightfully so, have much of their focus on the guys who are playing, so we’re here to supplement them.”
“Everyone is important, and the team is trying to develop everybody,” Barwin continues. “We are just trying to reinforce what Nick and Howie are saying. We play 17 games. It is a long, long season, and it is hard in the NFL for a lot of the players because you don’t know when your opportunities are going to come. How do you continue to get better when you don’t know when it’s going to come? Some guys, because of injuries, it happens quickly. For some guys, it can take years because a really good player is in front of them. But no matter if it happens quickly or not, if you aren’t getting better, you won’t be ready when it comes. It’s also important to help players try and navigate where they can add value year in and year out, because every team is different. When they figure out how to do something that helps the team, it’s hard to move on, and they buy themselves time to keep getting better so they are ready when the opportunity comes.”
Barwin oversees a program that is included in Sirianni’s daily practice script – a developmental period of 6-10 plays that includes those 25 or so players. Barwin cuts up the best of the best of those practice plays and gives the players in those practice sessions their own Eye In The Sky treatment in the auditorium. He highlights the standouts, bolstering their confidence, instilling their feeling of contributing to the team.
It is unlike any program in the league, and it is one of the staples of the innovative ways the Eagles build a football team and winning culture.
“It can play on you if you aren’t out there every week,” says safety Marcus Epps, in his eighth season and a starter now after years of being a fringe roster player with Minnesota and Las Vegas, in addition to the Eagles. “What we do – giving extra reps in practice, working on the basics, educating the guys – teams around the league don’t do that. It means everything. It helps you believe more in yourself and your value to the team.”
The Eagles invest in development. They bring parents of rookies in for a weekend every year and give them the laws of the land in the league – how many tickets players receive for free (two for home games, none for road games), how to navigate a game day, what happens if their son is injured during the game, the tax structure for contracts and other important must-knows.
To win, and win big, in the NFL, it requires everyone. The players at the top of the roster get all the headlines, the endorsement deals and the attention. But the bottom of the roster – perhaps overlooked in many NFL cities – gets its love, too, in the land of the Philadelphia Eagles.
“You come into the league, and everything is going a million miles an hour, and you can feel overlooked,” says wide receiver Darius Cooper. “I can’t tell you how much this program helped me as a rookie last year. Extra reps on the field. Encouragement. Knowing where you stand. We know our roles here and our job is to be great in the role. Having that little bit of extra love, man, it means so much.”
Everyone matters. Everything is important. Developing a roster, top to bottom, is an Eagles’ priority, and the results from the years since the program have been in place – two Super Bowl appearances and four playoff appearances in the four-plus years – speak loudly.
Eagles Insider Dave Spadaro has covered every Eagles game since 1987 and is seen and heard throughout the year on television, radio and Eagles coverage everywhere. You can hear his Eagles Live Podcast on iTunes.
