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The Philadelphia Eagles are set to face their toughest challenge of the 2017 NFL season this Sunday.
OK, so it’s only their second game. Still, this one doesn’t look easy on paper. The Chiefs are coming off a convincing road win over the Patriots. That’s not easy to do.
In addition, Kansas City has a strong home field advantage and they’re coming off extra rest. We all know how good Andy Reid is when he has extra time to prepare for his opponents.
But let’s not count out the Eagles just yet. It’s Any Given Sunday, after all, and the Birds aren’t some terrible team (I think).
Bleeding Green Nation already took some time to chat with Arrowhead Pride on Thursday in order to preview this Week 2 tilt.
Today, we're back with three reasons why each team might lose. This format forces us to consider each own team's weaknesses, rather than just think of why each team is awesome.
So here are three reasons why the Chiefs could lose, as written by AP’s Pete Sweeney. Stay tuned to Arrowhead Pride to see why I think the Eagles could lose.
Why the Chiefs lose
Ha. Last week I predicted the Chiefs would lose and as the world knows, they very much didn’t.
But here we go again.
OFFENSE
In Week 1, New England did a nice job taking one of the Chiefs’ best playmakers in tight end Travis Kelce out of the game, holding him to just five receptions for 40 yards. The most dangerous threat Kelce has is his ability to gain yards after the catch, and the Patriots did a nice job containing him.
The first step would be for Kelce seeing similar looks against an Eagles defense.
With Ronald Darby out, Tyreek Hill is going to be a problem, so the Kansas City offensive line will have to falter just enough for the good front seven of the Philly defense to disrupt Alex Smith, disallowing the clean connections with Hill in the open field.
Rookie running back Kareem Hunt would need to have a much worse game than last time out.
DEFENSE
The Patriots avoided cornerback Marcus Peters like the plague, so I expect in the Eagles’ attempt to win, they’ll follow suit.
Peters stays home on the left, so Terrance Mitchell and Phillip Gaines would need to have a bad game on the right, and it will help the Birds if Daniel Sorensen has a poor first outing filling in a primary role with Eric Berry sidelined for the year.
It wouldn’t hurt the Eagles’ chances if former bird Bennie Logan, who was held out of practice on Wednesday with a knee contusion, can’t go for the Chiefs’ front.
Starting left tackle Jason Peters needs to be healthy to stop linebacker Dee Ford on the right, and Justin Houston will need to look much worse than last week, because by all indications, he looks back to 2014 form. Houston had two sacks against the Patriots.
X-FACTOR
The protégé in Doug Pederson outcoaches his mentor in Andy Reid.
It doesn’t happen a lot in life, but sometimes after a while, the pupil can predict what the teacher is thinking and outsmart him. Perhaps that happens Sunday.