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The Eagles face perhaps their toughest matchup of the year as they host the Steelers at 4:25.
Carson Wentz followed up his brilliant debut with another solid performance that looked better to the eye than his stat line, and the defense once again feasted on an inferior offense. The latter won’t be the case today, as the Steelers have one of the best offenses in the league, and the former probably won’t.
Ben Roethlisberger unsurprisingly leads the league in TD passes, Antonio Brown will provide a shorthanded Eagles secondary with their toughest challenge, DeAngelo Williams has again turned back time to start the season, and Sammie Coates has been good for at least one big play a game. Meanwhile the Steelers defense has given up only one touchdown pass this year despite having the 2nd most pass attempts against, and they have a strong run defense. This is a complete team.
It’s going to take a complete game by the Eagles to defeat the Steelers, and with two starters in Leodis McKelvin and Zach Ertz out, the degree of difficulty is increased.
But that’s okay. This is a rebuilding year for the Eagles, the highs must be taken with the lows. Today figures to be one of them. Any given Sunday and all that, but the Eagles don’t have the horses at the skill positions to keep up in a shootout. It’ll take a big game by the defense to pull this one out. The Steelers are simply the better team, and the better team usually wins. A loss today has little impact on the Eagles, both in the short and long term. In the short term, an out of conference loss barely makes a dent on their chances to win the division. Nobody is going to panic (that’s your cue to panic). In the long term, the most important thing about today’s game, like the rest of the season, is how Carson Wentz performs. A solid game by Wentz in a loss would be a completely acceptable outcome.
The game could be fairly close, and the Eagles being at home helps. But this feels like it could be a reverse of the trend of the Eagles first two games: close for the first half but then the better team just takes over in the second half.
My predictions:
Score prediction: 28-13 Steelers.
Bold prediction: Eagles secondary doesn’t give up a pass of 40+ yards.
Your predictions:
Leave your own predictions in the comments.
Score prediction:
Bold prediction: