Philly Sports Chat

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Going into the season there was a lot of excitement but nobody truly knew what to expect from  the Eagles.  In the offseason they bolstered their offensive line, they had a great draft which brought in 2 explosive offensive rookies, made a splash by signing Vick and brought in Weaver. But still, nobody from fans to NFL analysts, knew where to rank this team among the other teams in the league.

As the season started picking up, the Birds kept us scratching our heads for the first 10 weeks of the season. While they looked unstoppable one week, they would look terrible the next. There was no consistency. For example, in week 5 they crushed Tampa Bay 33-14. They were riding high into Oakland for a game with the Raiders a week later and lost. By week 10, they were coming off of a loss to the Chargers and were sitting in the middle of the pack at 5-4. You never knew which team would show up each week.

Then something happened. Starting in Chicago week 11, the Eagles began rolling through teams and performing well. Although they were injured in many places including the o-line, running game and linebackers, they managed to find ways to win. The confidence of the team and their fans was sky high as the Eagles won 6 in a row. Going into week 17 they were in 2nd place in the NFC with the division title in their grasps. The NFL analysts considered the Eagles one of the favorites to come out of the NFC and make it to the Super Bowl.

But man did they have us tricked! We should have looked at the season and their 6 game winning streak a bit closer. All year (including the playoffs) the Eagles were 0-5 against playoff teams. Each game of their 6 game winning streak came against a team that didn’t make the playoffs and (besides the lopsided 49ers beatdown) they only won those games by an average of 6.2 points.

They looked good on paper with an 11-5 record and one of the highest scoring offenses in the NFL but they had problems that many failed to recognize. Going 0-5 against playoff teams during the season is not a good sign. If you can’t beat the good teams, it will be a difficult road to the Super Bowl for anyone. Also, even though they were such a high scoring offense, their defense was giving up way too many points.

There’s no question that this team needs to work on patching a lot up before next season. Players need to get healthy and they need A LOT of help on the defensive side of the ball. But the past 2 games against Dallas are something we should have seen coming. The deceiving 6 game winning streak they went on provided us with a false sense of confidence and their 11-5 record makes them seem a lot stronger than they were.

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