A season after winning Super Bowl XL, head coach Bill Cowher walked away from the Pittsburgh Steelers after 15 seasons.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones allowed Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells to retire after four seasons when it looked as if his Super Bowl march had stalled.
All of which brings us to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and what he thinks about the foundering football program currently being orchestrated by Andy Reid, the head coach and master of all things football-related.
In 1999, Lurie spotted something in Reid that persuaded him to give the then-quarterbacks coach of the Green Bay Packers full rein of his football program.
And for most of that time, Lurie could sit back and smile proudly as Reid justified his faith in him by putting together one of the most successful eras in Eagles history.
But since their Super Bowl appearance in the 2004 season, Reid's Eagles have been on a slow descent toward mediocrity.
The Birds failed to follow up on their Super Bowl appearance and instead joined the long list of Super Bowl losers who failed to make the playoffs the following season.
A miraculous late-season surge last year, engineered by backup quarterback Jeff Garcia, prevented the Eagles from missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time in the Reid era.
But now, with the Eagles 2-4 and coming off a devastating, last-minute collapse against the Chicago Bears, playoff possibilities are all but done.
And you have to wonder what else Lurie might think is just about done.
Nine seasons is a long time for a professional coach to remain with one team. Inevitably, it gets to a point at which the law of diminishing returns kicks in and things grow stale.
From 1999 through 2004, Reid went 64-32 in the regular season, with four NFC East Division titles, four trips to the NFC Championship Game and a Super Bowl appearance.
Since then, Reid is 18-20, and if the Birds don't rally again this season, it'll be two of the last three seasons without reaching the playoffs.
