Eagles Players Have Earned Positivity, Even if Coach Hasn’t
The Eagles are 6-2. Only 2 teams have an outright better record than them, with 2 other teams being a half-game ahead of them because they played 1 more game. They are the only team in the league who are top 10 in both offense and defense, where they are 6th in yards per game and 3rd in yards allowed per game. Jalen Hurts hasn’t turned the ball over in the last 4 games and is looking like he did in 2022.
On paper, there are a lot of good things happening with this football. And yet, there is a dark cloud looming over the city. Between the implosion last season and the baffling decisions of Nick Sirianni, many fans are having a hard time finding a reason to be positive.
But put last year aside for a second, and leave Sirianni out of it. Every other part of this team is giving you a reason to be optimistic.
This young defense is playing way better than anyone could have expected. Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean aren’t just good for rookies, they are good period. Jalen Carter has been a force in the middle of that line, racking up 6 pressures last week. They are getting consistent production out of Josh Sweat, and their LB group of Zack Baun and Nakobe Dean are consistently graded out as some of the best LBs in the league.
Then turn it to the offense. Saquon Barkley might be the Offensive Player of The Year. AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are perhaps the best WR duo in the league. The offensive line, even while having to mix and match pieces, are still one of the best units in the league.
Hurts leads the league in completions of at least 40 yards with 8, despite having the early bye week. Saquon Barkley leads RBs for runs of at least 40 yards with 4. AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are tied for 4th for catches of at least 40 yards with 3. This offense is one of the most explosive offenses in the league, whether it is on the ground or through the air.
The talent on this team is very good, and they are clicking. The players played well enough vs Jacksonville to win 37-16. Is Nick Sirianni an issue? Sure. But don’t let him prevent you from celebrating how good everything else about this team looks.
The Best Show Ever Makes The Case For Being Positive About The Eagles
This is exactly what The Best Show ever talked about on Tuesday. They talked about how baffling Sirianni’s choices were on Monday. They are not ignoring that. But after a day where a win was treated like a loss, they wanted to bring some positivity back to the Eagles conversation.
“People are being stubborn at this point to be trying to look back to last year. I’m tired of hearing about it. How many weeks do you have to go through this year before it’s this year. It’s not last year anymore. I don’t understand the need to talk about last year anymore. when we’re eight games approaching the ninth game of the new year.
Now that we’re about halfway, can’t we just judge this team based on its own merits and stop being stubborn? I understand the part about the coach and that one I can’t fight you on, but there should be a lot of negativity when it comes to the players.
Through eight games, what we’re seeing is good football, and in a lot of spots, better football than we expected. Therefore, to me, we have to stop being stubborn. We have to fight back against being stubborn on this one, and just admit that this is a good football team.
Jalen Carter is developing and playing at a high level. He’s now beating double teams consistently. Well, that wasn’t happening last year.
I think that we’re being stubborn sometimes because I don’t know if that makes us more Philadelphia. Does it make us more Philadelphia to kind of be down to the dumps? A little bit negative, a chip on our shoulders? Is that like just part of being us to where we don’t even though things are good right now, we don’t want to act like it because, you know, we don’t want to get too high and we don’t want to be too excited.
We’d rather have an underdog mentality. We’ve had to have a chip on our shoulder and feel disrespected. When in actuality, when you have this many star players, like they’re 7.5 point favorites against Dallas right now on the road, like you’re not an underdog right now. You’ve got a bunch of good football players.“
So ignore the Nick Sirianni issue for a moment, forget about last season for a bit, and just look at the roster, and how it is playing. The players on the field are doing really good things right now. That is worth some positivity.
This Eagles team is good. The talent is delivering. And the talent is young and locked up here for the foreseeable future. The only key cogs that might not be here 2 years from now are Lane Johnson, Darius Slay, and Dallas Goedert. Even if this year is not the year, the future of this team is bright.
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