Yea, yea I get it I haven't wrote a goddamn thing since my apology for me getting free tickets for Wing Bowl 26 (RIP). I have clearly been letting down the Stoop, because without me writing about the Eagles this website is just Joe documenting his gambling problem and Matt telling the world he still watches Survivor. There's been a few reasons why I haven't been writing recently. Busyness. Laziness. Drinking too much. But the main reason is because I didn't want to jinx the Eagles.
If you remember I almost predicted the Eagles regular season to a T in my season preview last summer. They even went on to outperform my expectations, crushed my hopes and dreams, and then turned full Rocky and won the motherfucking Super Bowl. So naturally during the season as they kept winning I kept my mouth shut, and in turn haven't wrote anything since. But recently, I've noticed two things that have wanted me to get back to writing. One, the Eagles are playing uneven ball going into the bye and if I could inspire some sort of jolt of energy into the ethos this would be the most opportune time. And two, I've seen wannabe Instagram stars, Temple University Football (we're still paying you bitches), and even Adam Sandler steal our design and while it may be a coincidence I like to think that its probably not. I can't sit idle while people are stealing from the Stoop! So it is now time I get back on the radar and give everyone 5 reasons they need to chill the fuck out about the Eagles.
1. Oh wait, I'm sorry. Didn't we win the motherfucking Super Bowl?
I get it, it is easy as a Philadelphia sports fan to be self deprecating and angry about the Eagles not getting off to the best start. And honestly the Titans and Panthers games were awful and should not have gotten to the point they got to. But last I checked, we won the Super Bowl and we should stop feeling so goddamn sorry about ourselves. I get it. Its a new season it doesn't matter blah blah blah. But, there hasn't been a time in my life that I could say the Birds are coming off a championship season so I'm going to fucking act like it. I'm not letting this 4-4 start get to me. We just watched Nick Foles pull the most incredible playoff performance maybe ever out of his ass. If that doesn't show you that anything is possible with this current group then you clearly haven't been paying attention to this team. This team is two shitty defensive meltdowns away from 6-2. It was a disjointed start. But to be 4-4 after having the shitty version of Nick Foles start 2 games, losing most of our secondary by week 4, and losing both tackles, and losing two our our best RBs is good enough for me at this point, especially when a lot of our issues are self inflicted and can be fixed. I'm confident that this bye was perfectly timed for this group and we will hopefully be seeing some exciting football down the stretch.
2. Howie Roseman is still doing a great job
Howie Roseman has been doing a really good job with this team since he came back from his vacation to Turks & Caicos in 2016. You can nitpick some of his (and Joe Douglas') draft decisions, but overall they've done a great job of identifying "their type of guys" and running with that formula. This year's trade deadline acquisition of Golden Tate was great. It looks like a lot on paper to pay for a 30 year old WR, but with the Eagles still having 3 picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds so you can live with it if he provides this team a jump start on offense for 8 games when you're trying to repeat. The Eagles don't have any game breakers right now that Wentz can target. Ertz and Alshon are fantastic, but they aren't going to hit home runs on offense. Tate has the ability to single handedly destroy a defense after the catch. I think he's going to be exactly what this offense needs to get going which in turn will take some pressure off of the defense and allow this team to get back to playing the way we expect them to. Even with this being a rough year so far, the Eagles are going to be good for a very long time with Howie running the show again.
3. Carson Wentz is still a monster and may be playing better than he did last year
Carson Wentz is just awesome. In 8 games this season he has already accumulated over 1700 yards, 13 TDs and only 2 interceptions while throwing at a career high 70% completion percentage. That's roughly 10% higher than he was at last year, with almost the same TD and Int rate. The dudes a beast. People will complain he fumbles too much, which is somewhat valid. But when you look at his 7 fumbles, he recovered 4 of them so they weren't even turnovers. A lot of them come off of botched snaps or him just getting obliterated from the blindside when Peters isn't in, so I am not too concerned about it going forward. If he can continue to stay healthy there are very few other QBs in this league that I would rather have leading this team down the stretch.
4. Timmy Jernigan is back
An underrated loss this offseason was DT Timmy Jernigan, who played well enough last year to earn a new contract with the Birds. He's been out due to an injury he sustained working out in the offseason, but he is going to be a major factor along that defensive line the rest of the year. Jernigan is the perfect compliment to Fletcher Cox, and with the two of them creating havoc on the inside we should hopefully see more out of the DEs which will allow for our defense to put more pressure on the QB in the second half of this season. Plus he wears grillz during the game, and I've missed seeing that. If he is able to play like he did last year and help this defense get more pressure, it will help our depleted secondary and allow us to close out games like we did last year.
5. We still have 5 division games left
Our schedule is tough with matchups against the Saints and Rams coming up down the stretch, but we still have 5 games against our NFC East rivals. The Giants are just a mess, the Redskins are playing equally uneven ball (they put up 9 points against the Colts), and Dallas is turning into a dumpster fire at precisely the right time. There is no reason that this team shouldn't sweep these games, which would put us in the driver seat in the East. No one is going to want to see this team in the playoffs if they go down the stretch winning at least 5 of their last 8, and this back half schedule is perfect for the Birds to get their groove back and measure up against potential playoff teams in the process.
Everyone needs to get back behind this team and forget what we saw for the first 8 games. We're back to square one and the only goal is to get into the playoffs and make some noise. Everything is laid right out in front of the Birds in order for them to get it done. Stop fucking crying about Jalen Mills getting burnt from time to time, stop complaining that we didn't trade for Le'veon, stop saying maybe we should pump the breaks on the Wentz hype. Have the Eagles been disappointing? Sure they have. But for how dissapointing they have been we could be in a way bleaker situation right now. This is when you want the team to be clicking on all cylinders. So shut up and start going back to doing all of your weird Eagles superstitious juju magic rituals that you probably stopped doing because they won the Super Bowl. I know I will be. Go Birds.