You look around the other teams in the NFC playoff bracket and look at the Eagles and there\u2019s only one conclusion I can draw: The Eagles are capable of beating any team in the playoffs and equally capable of losing to any team in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Kind of a weird place to be, but it\u2019s true. At this point, anything is possible.<\/p>\n
With this defense, the Eagles can shut down any offense, any quarterback. They held five of their last eight opponents to 18 points or less and over the last two months this was the best defense in the NFL.<\/p>\n
But with this offense, it\u2019s going to be a struggle scoring enough points to beat a good team. In their last five games against playoff teams, they scored 17, 10, 15, 19 and 13 points. So it\u2019s hard to have faith that this unit can go out and score 27 or 30 points in a playoff game.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s where we\u2019re at. Can their defense play well enough to overcome the offense\u2019s deficiencies? Not exactly the kind of stuff that inspires confidence going into the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s important to remember that the Eagles aren\u2019t the only team with issues right now.<\/p>\n
The 49ers team that comes to the Linc Sunday is 20th\u00a0in defense, 25th\u00a0in pass defense, 32nd\u00a0in sacks, 24th\u00a0in first downs allowed, 30th\u00a0in interceptions and 22nd\u00a0in takeaways. This is not an elite defense. They\u2019re kind of a mirror image of the Eagles, with one very good side of the ball and another not so good.<\/p>\n
And you can do this with every team in the NFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Seahawks are the No. 1 seed, but are you really worried about\u00a0Sam Darnold beating you? The Packers have lost four straight games by an average of 11 \u00bd points. The Panthers won the South with a losing record. The Rams are good but the Eagles already beat them once, and Nick Sirianni is 4-0 vs. Sean McVay. The Bears? They just lost at home to a Lions team with nothing to play for, and they\u2019re 2-3 since beating the Eagles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t one team in the NFC that scares me. There isn\u2019t one team in the NFC that the Eagles can\u2019t beat. Of course, there isn\u2019t one team in the NFC that isn\u2019t capable of beating the Eagles, either. They\u2019re averaging 16.7 points this year against playoff teams and you\u2019re not going to win a lot of playoff games scoring 16 or 17 points.<\/p>\n
But there are a few things the Eagles can really lean on as the playoffs approach. A few things that should give Eagles fans a healthy dose of hope and belief.<\/p>\n
They got to 11-6 against the NFL\u2019s toughest schedule, and among the teams they\u2019ve beaten are the 12-5 Bills, 12-5 Rams and 9-7-1 Packers. In addition to Highmark and Lambeau, they won at Arrowhead, Raymond James and U.S. Bank, and even though those teams faded, those are big-time wins in tough stadiums.<\/p>\n
Then you look at this offense that has been so disappointing this year and you have to remember it isn\u2019t talent that\u2019s holding them back. They have two star receivers, a Super Bowl MVP quarterback, a 2,000-yard rusher, a top-10 tight end and an offensive line that should be healthy and rested by next Sunday. It\u2019s not like they\u2019re sputtering because they don\u2019t have talent. They\u2019re loaded. And if Kevin Patullo can find some elusive rhythm as a play caller, this offense has the ability to explode against anyone.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s this, and I think this is huge: This is a battle-tested team that rolled through the playoffs and won a Super Bowl 10 months ago. They know how to win, and they believe they can do it again. They have one of only five quarterbacks to reach two Super Bowls before his 27th\u00a0birthday and one of only five coaches to take his first five teams to the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This roster is jammed with guys who\u2019ve reached the pinnacle of the NFL and made plays on the game\u2019s biggest stage. There\u2019s tremendous value having guys who not only believe they can win a Super Bowl but already have and know what it takes.<\/p>\n
We can come up with plenty of reasons the Eagles won\u2019t go on a deep playoff run, and they\u2019re all valid. It won\u2019t be easy just to get past the 49ers on Sunday.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also a world of potential in that locker room, and the Eagles have shown they have the ability to beat anybody anywhere at any time. And that\u2019s a pretty powerful thing this time of year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You look around the other teams in the NFC playoff bracket and look at the Eagles and there\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,4904,7,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-655938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-eagles-blog","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","14":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115842637263068607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}