When Five Is Greater Than Three
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| Cross Eyed And Painless |
There will be no one involved with the laundry that will say this, of course. It's a month away, and a month in the NFL is an entirety. Hell, for all we know, Atlanta or New Orleans or Carolina might finally start playing good football, and time their play perfectly to make a run in the playoffs. Dumber things have happened.
But, well, if the season ended today, your best chance of advancing on Wild Card Weekend in the NFC is to be the first wildcard, and drawing the DOA NFC South champion.
Right now, there appears to be three teams for those two slots.
1) The loser of the Cards/Seahawks bake-off in the West, seems more likely to be the Cards
2) The loser of the Packers-Lions bake-off in the West, seems more likely to be Detroit, and
3) The loser of the Eagles-Cowboys bake-off in the East, more likely to be Dallas.
And while it would be criminally stupid to throw a game to go on the road, which would probably put you, assuming you survived, in Green Bay the next week against the rested and home Packers...
Well, that kind of beats getting punked in your own yard in the first week by Seattle again, right?
3 comments:
In looking at the possible scenarios, it's hard to see how the Eagles do better than 1-1 in the playoffs. They're 2-4 against good teams and one of those "good" teams has a shot at revenge this Sunday.
What type of change would they have to make to start beating elite teams? I'm assuming that the return of Foles would not provide much of a spark.
2013 Foles would be a hell of a spark. 2014, not so much...
The defense has gotten a lot better over the course of the year, but the secondary, with the exceptions of Jenkins and Boykins, is suspect.
As for the offense... I hate to be simplistic about this, but the QB for the next serious Eagles contender is not on the roster.
You might have the 3 WRs you need with Maclin, Matthews and Huff. You might have your TE in Ertz. The OL isn't as good as it was in 2013, but it's still pretty good, and the backups played well earlier in the year. That's also got to get better, though. But the QB is the most important position in sports, and the Eagles have guys who can throw to wide-open players on a first read. Second and third, make a play with your legs while not turning it over? Not so much.
Put Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck, and maybe Drew Brees on this team... they might win a game they don't win decisively in the trenches. The league is too close to only win games that you win in the trenches.
(And to be fair, Houston and St. Louis might also be "good". In the NFL now, it's when you play a team. Look at the September Packers or Seahawks, for instance.)
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