ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Nick Sirianni gathered the Eagles in the visitors’ locker room after beating the only team with as many wins as his franchise over the last five regular seasons and said he didn’t care if the score was 48-47 or 2-0 — or, in this case, 13-12 over the Buffalo Bills. It was the type of victory that has become an Eagles staple this season — doing enough to win but not enough to leave a demanding fan base overjoyed. 

Sirianni called it a “heavyweight bout.” It came against a team with the best Super Bowl odds in the AFC and with the reigning MVP at quarterback. The Eagles won despite gaining only 16 yards in the second half. They needed the defense to thwart the Bills on a potential game-winning two-point conversion. But they did what they’ve done so often with Sirianni and Jalen Hurts. They won. And it’s the card that trumps the criticism and the commotion, and it’s the overriding sentiment after what might be the final time most of the starters play before the playoffs. 

This win could be hailed as the Eagles showing where they stand against another contender, except that framing may be unfair to the defending Super Bowl champions. If this were boxing, they would own the heavyweight belt.

Who needed to measure themselves against whom? 

“For me, perspective-wise, I just don’t like when we’re not considered a heavyweight, and we’re like, ‘Oh, you guys have to match them’,” offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said. “That pisses me off. I think we deserve a little respect. Just a little bit, a little consideration.”

The Eagles are 11-5 following their Super Bowl campaign, and they’re now 8-2 against teams that made the playoffs last year. This wasn’t the Eagles’ opportunity to measure themselves against Buffalo as much as the Bills’ chance to measure themselves against the Super Bowl champions — just as it was for the Los Angeles Rams in Week 3 or the Green Bay Packers in Week 10 or even the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2 and Washington Commanders in Week 16, all of whom lost to the Eagles in the postseason. The Eagles won all those rematches.

Think back to those wins, and most of them came with some reason to grumble — poking the coach or the quarterback, the play-calling or the running game. Yet they keep winning, and even in conversations among the players, the theme of focusing on the win, no matter how it looks, remains present. That’s why the Eagles, for whatever warts still exist when the calendar flips to 2026, should be considered a bona fide Super Bowl contender again.

“If you come out of a football game when you win on the road in a hostile environment … against a really good football team that’s had the sustained success we have, if you come out of this and you’re just thinking about all the negative things that happened, that makes for a miserable existence,” Sirianni said.