PHILADELPHIA — When I think about the 2024 Eagles, I will think about Bryce Huff.

I will think about sitting in an open-air press box in a city where I couldn’t order a cheeseburger without Google Translate. I will think about watching a football game on a converted soccer field, and watching the grass hold up to the pounding like a drop-shipped entryway rug.

Mostly, I will think about what I thought about throughout the Eagles’ 34-29 win over the Packers.

Where the hell is Bryce Huff?

Well, here we are, nine months later, and we finally have our answer. Huff is en route to San Francisco, traded for an inconsequential draft pick.

Some will snicker that the Eagles ended up paying $20 million for a fourth- or fifth-round pick. Others will note that they landed a pick with at least a shred of future value, which is more than could be said about the player for which they were traded. The rest of us will shrug and watch a replay of the Super Bowl. Huff will always be welcome at the reunions.

It would be a mistake to say that a championship washes away all sins. At some point over the next two, three, four years, the Eagles will find themselves in a situation where they wish they had an extra $25 million or so to spend. When they do, they’ll regret that they ended up spending it on a player who was basically inactive for all but the first seven of 21 games.

Huff wasn’t just a bad signing. He was that summer happy hour that didn’t end until the next morning. Nine months later, you still don’t want to look at the bank statement. The numbers speak for themselves: 13 tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, less than 40% of the snaps, none of them in the Super Bowl. The last time an organization got so little for its money, Yahoo bought AOL.

Still, I can’t help but feel that this moment calls for an appreciation. Not of Huff, but of the team that didn’t need him. Think about the questions we were asking of the Eagles when they signed Huff to a three-year, $51 million deal. They were coming off one of the most astounding collapses in NFL history. They had a coach who probably should have been fired, and a quarterback who had resorted to speaking in riddles.

The Eagles were a team in disarray, a team desperate for an answer. Huff was where they chose to spend their money. They paid him 30% more than Saquon Barkley. That was the story at the start of the season. The story now is that it didn’t matter.

Huff wasn’t just a forgettable chapter in a championship season. He was the prologue. No player better epitomized the 2024 Eagles. In Week 1, he was the big concern. In the Super Bowl, he was inactive. They paid him $26 million for nothing. It didn’t matter.

Huff didn’t make the Eagles any better in 2024. He won’t do so in 2025, since he will be a member of the 49ers. His place in history is secured by the shrug we offer his departure. Huff’s irrelevance is the greatest testament to just how good the Eagles are.

____

©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.