If you’re worried about the Eagles Sunday you never believed at all
by John Kincade
It’s been a weird week as the Eagles prepare for the final regular season game against the NY Giants. When the Eagles walked off the field in Chicago at (13-1) nobody could have ever expected that we would be asked to sweat out one more game in Week 18 to decide their playoff fate. More importantly, a win gives you the one seed and a loss sends you to Tampa Bay again on wildcard weekend the to face the Buccaneers like last year. It would be a huge disappointment and one of the greatest collapses in NFL history. I understand the angst but without context the story is completely different.
Jalen Hurts is returning and things are going to look to return to normalcy. Now we are left to discuss whether Jalen could have returned last weekend against the Saints and the Eagles chose to sit him out as a precaution. Did the Eagles decide they were good enough to beat New Orleans without Hurts and could afford to give him another week of rest? The speculation is definitely there. Before the Saints game Adam Schefter tweeted that Jalen Hurts is “expected to be available next Sunday vs the Giants”. That told me, reading between the lines, that he COULD have played in the game last Sunday. Our own Tim McManus has reported that his belief was that the injury to Hurts shoulder “was not serious”. It might have been a game of poker that the Eagles lost. We shall see Sunday if they pay the price.
I look at it this way, with Jalen Hurts the Eagles were (13-1) and rampaging through the NFC. Without him they looked disorganized and out of sync. The unforced errors and mental lapses could have been a side product of the team taking a nonchalant attitude towards the Saints game. They lacked energy and focus. They better find it on Sunday against a Giants team that is not expected to play its starters and already is locked into the NFC 6 seed.
A piece of fan analysis from me, if you are worried about the outcome of Sundays game with Jalen Hurts as 14 point favorites you never believed in them in the first place. Stop with the nonsense of saying how tortured Eagles fans have been and that is why you have doubts. We saw a Super Bowl parade 5 years ago and have been to the playoffs 3 of the other 4 seasons. There is every reason to believe in the Birds, significantly more than any other team in the NFC East. If you don’t think that the Eagles can win this game you never believed in the first place.
The Eagles and this coaching staff deserve my confidence with their starting QB and they most certainly have earned that. I’m expecting a solid, decisive, quick hit response to put this game away quickly. You hope that Jalen Hurts won’t display a lot of rust and that the loss of Lane Johnson won’t prove detrimental.
If you allowed yourself to dream of a Super Bowl parade a few weeks ago feel free to dream it again. You don’t have to be scared. Trust is earned and if you don’t feel the Eagles have earned it, you never trusted them in the first place.
