At least somebody in the Eagles' organization wants to win football games now.

Owner Jeff Lurie? He thinks Eagles fans -- who haven't experienced a playoff win since 2008, nine years ago -- should be patient.

"We're in the mode where we're not one player away," he said at the owners meetings last month. "As an owner, I have to be really patient."

He added, "We have to draft really well over the next few years to accomplish what we want to accomplish early in Carson (Wentz's) career."

The next few years.

Executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman was a little more vague -- Howie is always vague -- but he too spoke about the long term and building for the future as opposed to winning now.

"We want to make good decisions, we want to minimize our risk and go forward and have something to build upon," he said at the combine.

Lurie and Roseman have both spent the last few months preaching patience. Claiming that the Eagles are several years away from contending for a championship. Essentially trying to buy more time from fans who haven't experienced a postseason victory since Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and Brian Dawkins played here.

We all know there are no five-year plans in the NFL anymore. If you make the right moves, you can go from 4-12 to 13-3 … like the Cowboys did last year. You can go from 4-12 to 10-6 … like the Eagles did in 2013.

In 16 of the last 18 years, at least one division winner was a team that finished last the year before.

As Lurie himself once said, "The NFL is a league of non-linear progression."

If you have an elite quarterback, you are immediately a contender, and Lurie should know that after watching the Eagles transform from a 5-11 team in 1999 to an 11-5 team that went two rounds deep in the playoffs in 2000.

Patience is a bunch of nonsense, and it was refreshing Monday to hear Carson Wentz take a completely different approach when talking about 2017.

"I have always held myself to high expectations and last year at the end of the day we finished 7-9 and that's not good enough," Wentz said.

"That's never going to be good enough for me or anybody in this building. So I fully expect us to all make strides and hopefully be playing into January."

The Eagles have missed the playoffs three years in a row for the first time since 1997 through 1999. If they fall short in 2017, it will be their first four-year absence from the postseason since 1982 through 1987.

That's 30 years ago.

This is unacceptable.

By preaching patience and talking about their long-range plan, Lurie and Roseman are creating a franchise-wide philosophy that losing -- that failing to reach the playoffs and win in the playoffs -- is acceptable.

They may be doing it unconsciously, but they're doing it.

Thankfully, the quarterback -- the one guy whose voice carries the most weight in the locker room and throughout the NovaCare Complex -- is setting the bar far higher.

And he is dead right when he says there is absolutely no reason the Eagles shouldn't be a playoff team.

Now.

Do they have holes? Yes, they have holes. But every team has holes.

They also have five of the first 139 picks in the draft, which gives them a terrific opportunity to address those holes.

And they have a 24-year-old quarterback who should make a huge jump in Year 2, and anybody who saw the jump Donovan McNabb made in Year 2 -- from a wide-eyed mistake-prone rookie to an experienced Pro Bowl veteran -- knows what that can mean to a team.

When I asked Wentz Monday what he wants to improve on the most in 2017, he said this:

"Just consistency. Just being consistent with accuracy, just everything. Just being more comfortable with that. But I want to win. Like I said, 7-9 is not going to make the cut so that's where we've got to improve."

I like this. Asked about his goals, he just talked about winning.

It's a really encouraging sign that the most important player on the team -- really, the most important player the Eagles have acquired since McNabb 18 years ago -- has set the bar high for himself and his teammates.

Someone around here had to.

What are his expectations for 2017?

"Making the playoffs," he said. "Wining the division and then seeing what happens. The No. 1 goal is obviously winning the East. That's what we have our sights set on.

"We truly believe we have the pieces in place. We've got a lot of work ahead of us here, it's early, it's April still.

"But we truly believe that and we're going to put the work in and get it done."