Let’s Talk About Dem Eagles

Glory hallelujah y’all! It’s 2020 and the Eagles are in the playoffs. What a way to kick off the new year. Whether you were up early to get a prime viewing spot for the Mummer’s Parade or are only just now sleeping off your NYE reindeer games, it’s a great day to be present and thankful for all the past year offered us and the promise of a new year – and decade! – laid out before us with infinite possibilities. One of those possibilities is the Eagles’ return to the Super Bowl.

Football fans treat “any given Sunday” like a mandate from the heavens, but let’s be real here. The Eagles, ending the regular season at 9-7, are the team with not only the worst stats of any divisional winner in the NFC, but in the entire NFL as well. Their clinching the NFL East (which many derided as the “NFC Least” this season) was the kind of sorcery that you read about in books, involving a complicated dance of other teams losing more than the Eagles winning. Although the team finished strong with a 4-game winning streak, this is not a team that looks like it’s in any shape to go the distance.

Hot take? Not really. Let’s talk facts. Although the Eagles were Super Bowl champs a couple of years ago and made the playoffs last year, this is franchise quarterback Carson Wentz’s first shot at the big time. In the last two years, backup QB Nick Foles (who brought shame upon his former glory this past year in Jacksonville) was the driving force behind the team’s underdog victories. Wentz brings with him a team that is notably beat-up and deep into backups. To get past the first round of the playoffs, the team needs to beat the Seahawks. This will be tough, but not impossible, considering that the ‘hawks are pretty banged up as well. Beyond that, however, can the Eagles beat a juggernaut of a team like the 49ers? I’m as big a fan as they get, but my heart is telling me “no.”

Even if the Eagles end up one-and-done in the playoffs, it’s borderline miraculous that they got there in the first place. This new year will bring with it a new football season, and hopefully an Eagles team that capitalizes on the momentum they built late this season. Of course… anything can happen.

We’ll all just have to watch and see!