PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Commanders 24-22 in the season opener and were consciously making an effort in the game's aftermath to let that be enough.
"Last year, I know everyone [would] try to make something of, we won by two points. We're not getting on that this year. And that's a beautiful thing," running back Saquon Barkley said. "We come out with a win, we're going to be happy, we're going to celebrate and we're going to flush it and move on and get ready for next week."
That was the core of coach Nick Sirianni's postgame message to the team, players said: that, as receiver/returner Britain Covey put it, "We're not going to let anyone steal our joy from the wins."
Philadelphia has felt like Whoville at times in recent years, with inflated expectations and over analysis swiping the gift of victory with a Grinch-like harshness.
Such an environment -- where there's such angst over a four-year stretch in which the team has gone 51-18, reached two Super Bowl and won one -- is only possible when outsized standards are enforced by members of the organization and its city alike. And it's no coincidence that the mood inside the locker room and out was at its most sullen in 2023 and '25, two seasons following Super Bowl runs when good was in the shadows of great.
Barkley said he tried his best not to compare his more-than-respectable 2025 campaign (1,140 rushing yards, 7 TDs) to '24, when he became just the ninth back ever to eclipse 2,000 yards in the regular season, but "human nature" sometimes got the better of him.
He credits the team psychiatrist, Dr. Jody Foster, for helping to shift his mindset. Barkley told ESPN that the pivotal conversation with Foster occurred on the bus ride from the hotel to Gillette Stadium in front of the Eagles' preseason game against the New England Patriots on Aug. 22. She encouraged him to recognize the small wins during the course of a game or a season and to focus on three or four short-term goals within his control instead of overly concerning himself with the big picture.
"She's really just trying to get me focused on just getting back to the process and falling in love with the process. It's so easy in this business and who I am as a person to get motivated or pushed by results," he said, "but in reality, that's not what it's about."
Winning, Sirianni reminded the gathered media Wednesday, is hard, and he used a "Seinfeld" reference to illustrate his point.
He noted the Paul O'Neill episode, in which Kramer promises a child in the hospital that the Yankees slugger will hit two home runs for him in one game. "It's hard to hit home runs, and where did you get two from?" O'Neill asks Kramer, who snuck into the clubhouse.
In other words, winning is hard enough; there's no need to throw qualifiers on top of it when seeking satisfaction.
"You have to enjoy it because you know you're going to go right back to work, win or lose. We're going to sit here and we're all going to take ownership of the tape. Naturally as humans, you tend to look at the negatives more than you look at the positives, but there are so many positives and it's so important that joy comes after every time," Sirianni said.
It's not as easy when you're talking about a room full of ultra-high achievers -- players who have come to expect both team and personal success and know their legacy rides on it.
This time last year, it wasn't unusual for wins to be followed by cryptic messages from a clearly disenchanted A.J. Brown, now in New England. He's a player who cared about creating both a dynasty and a Hall-of-Fame résumé. The inefficiencies in the Eagles' passing game were a threat to both. He was not alone in his frustrations but the frequency in which he made his displeasure known helped put a cloud over things, as did the lack of progress on the offensive front.
"It's a combination of everything," Covey said. "One, it's playing in Philadelphia, it's loud. And you always want to feel like you're improving throughout the season so when you keep seeing the same problems appear in games, it can feel frustrating."
Some of the players are taking their cues from quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has "a confidence and aura to him," Covey said, stemming from being singularly focused on winning.
"That's always been my perspective, that's always been the MO is to go out there and find a way to win," Hurts said. "Because it's a hard thing to do. Winning is hard and it requires what it requires so we try to focus on the work, try to focus on the process and I think Coach has been really good with leading that."
New offensive coordinator Sean Mannion was brought in from Green Bay to help get the arrow pointing upwards once again. As expected, there were plenty of imperfections as the players took the new scheme for its first test drive during Week 1.
Barkley had four runs for negative yards. He acknowledged afterwards that those plays were top of mind and that last year, he "probably would have sat on this game too long." Now, though, he was trying to package it as a learning experience.
"It's going to be really good. We're going to just continue to build. I know how the media is and how Philly is and we like to overreact a little bit but it's not a finished product," Barkley said.
"We're going to keep working, we're going to keep trusting in Sean, we're going to keep trusting the system. We're going to find ways to just continue to get better. That's the goal and it's easier to do when you've got a win."