A Little Help

Posted: January 15th, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on A Little Help

The Buccaneers are better than the Eagles. Compare the rosters and Tampa has the obivous advantage. Compare the achievements and Tampa has the obvious advantage. They are the defending champs and went 13-4 this year. They also beat the Eagles this season.

The good news is that Sunday’s wild card game is a stand alone event. Tom Brady’s legacy won’t throw a pass. Last year’s Lombardi Trophy won’t make a tackle. And Tampa won’t have the roster than helped them go 13-4 this year.

The Bucs will still have Tom Brady at QB, but he’ll be missing a lot of firepower. This won’t be the same team that beat the Eagles earlier in the season.

As for the Eagles and their health…

Jalen Hurts is healthy and ready to go. He’ll have his whole OL, a full stable of RBs and all his key pass catchers.

The Eagles defense will have all of its key pieces, and they’ll need them when trying to pressure Brady. Sweat is the team’s best edge rusher. He must come up big for the Eagles to have a chance on Sunday.

The key to affecting Brady is normally pressure up the middle. That means Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave are the real keys for the Eagles. They must win up front and get quick pressure on Brady. He gets rid of the ball as fast as any QB in the league so interior pressure is the best way to affect him. You need to make Brady move his feet and you want to be right in his line of sight. Even if you don’t hit him, he’ll have to hold the ball longer than he wants as he adjusts. That gives guys like Sweat time to win off the edge.

I can’t stress enough that the Eagles and Bucs are different teams now than when they met. Tampa had the best run D in the league and they were also coming up with takeaways. The game was played on a short week, which gave a real advantage to the team that had a veteran coach and QB. The Eagles had lost 3 of 4 games. The offense was struggling and the defense couldn’t stop the run. Nick Sirianni was still hell bent on turning this into a passing team. Jonathan Gannon played a defense that was so soft that it might as well have been cotton candy.

Needless to say, a lot has changed. That doesn’t mean the Eagles will win, but these are different teams.

The big X-factor in the game will be the weather. It will be windy and rainy in Tampa. That means passing could be more challenging. If things play out that way, it would give an advantage to the Eagles and their dominant run game.

This will be a great test for the Eagles. Can their run game keep going in the playoffs? How will the defense do in their first game against a good QB since the first week of November? How will Hurts do? Are Sirianni and his staff ready for playoff football?

It would be great to see the Eagles pull off the upset and win this game. If they get some help from the weather and injuries, that is fine with me. The goal in the postseason is to win. If it involves luck, fine. If it is an ugly win, fine. Just win.

We all remember the beatdown of the Vikings and amazing Super Bowl, but the 15-10 win over the Falcons was hardly an NFL classic. And that game did involve some luck.

https://twitter.com/JustinLever3/status/1481745624139591681

Forget style points. Just find a way to win.

And hope luck is on your side.

*****

I hated the injury to Tyree Jackson, but Rodgers is probably an upgrade in this type of situation. Rodgers is the better blocker and is a veteran receiver. If you need him to make a play, he can. Jackson was all about upside.

*****

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