7 takeaways from Jeffrey Lurie’s State of the Eagles address

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Lurie delivered his annual State of the Eagles address from the NFL Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Here are seven major takeaways from Tuesday’s press conference:

On the retirements of Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox

“I just want to recognize that two players, extraordinary people and players, Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox retired this year,” Lurie said. “One of the joys of owning the Eagles is the camaraderie, the relationship with players, the relationship with coaches, relationships with everybody in the building. It’s one of the favorite joys of owning the team, and it’s all for a purpose: Winning.

“Yet, you come across extraordinary players and extraordinary people. Jason and Fletch, two exceptional, exceptional players. I hope we’ll see them both in Canton in five years, and they’ll of course be recognized and celebrated in Eagles near history and future history forever, but amazing people. Amazing people.”

On the decision to retain Head Coach Nick Sirianni

“We go through a very, very intensive process after every single season,” Lurie said. “This season was no different, extremely disappointing ending to the season, the last five, six games, extremely disappointing to me, very frustrating for all of us.

“And once one can assess and meet with Howie (Roseman), with Nick, go through a lot of details and a lot of plans and a lot of philosophies, I was very encouraged where we’re at and where we’re going forward. It was an extremely impressive meeting with Nick and Howie on our plans for both roster development and player development, execution, and every aspect of coaching.

“So, it was a very straightforward decision based on a very straightforward process. I don’t get very overly influenced by much. It has to be a holistic look of where we are as a franchise. I expect us to always be a championship-caliber team that looks to the mid-range and the future at the same time. They’re all important. And I think one of the experiences I’ve had over the years is to take a very hard look at everything every year, no matter how it ends, no matter how it starts.

“So, the ingredients that I’ve always seen with Nick are very obvious. The ability to connect. The ability to be authentic, very incredible work ethic, high football IQ, all the reasons that he was hired in the first place have been almost magnified in the first three years because they’ve been…