NFL Power Rankings Roundup Week 8: Eagles drop again

It’s time for our weekly roundup of how various media outlets view the Philadelphia Eagles in their NFL power rankings. It’s always interesting to see how the Birds stack up from an outside perspective. It’s just more depressing when they’re losing.

Mile High Report

14 - A real conversation I had Sunday night: “Done with this season, Eagles suck. They ain’t making the playoffs” -My brother (the Iggles fan) in the middle of a second straight debacle. “Would you want them to trade for Chris Harris tomorrow?” -Me. “I dont care, they wont make the playoffs regardless. One player doesn’t close this huge of a gap. They’re gonna mortgage their future and it wont $%@#ing matter. (LW: 11)

ESPN

15 - Recalibrated expectation: Dial it back and win the NFC East. The Eagles entered with expectations of being among the NFC’s elite, but at 3-4, the focus needs to be on capturing the division. They are a game back of the Cowboys following a blowout loss in Dallas on Sunday night. As bad as that was, they still have four division games remaining, including a home tilt against the Cowboys in December. The clearest path to the postseason is through a division title in a down NFC East. (LW: 14)

Pro Football Talk

15 - They would have fallen farther, if there weren’t so many bad teams behind them. (LW: 14)

Denver Post

15 - Yes, the Eagles were missing some key players (WR DeSean Jackson/LT Jason Peters), but it should be concerning how little resistance they presented Dallas in 37-10 loss. (LW: 8)

The Big Lead

15 - The Eagles were dominated by a Dallas team that looked very underwhelming for three weeks. The team is talented but has several clear and massive issues with no easy answers in sight. (LW: 11)

Sporting News

15 - The Eagles have trended from good to average to bad in a hurry. Their defense gives up too many big plays, their offense doesn’t make enough, and now everything is breaking down in a crumbling wall of poor complementary football. Doug Pederson and Jim Schwartz haven’t adjusted well with their talented team. (LW: 12)

NFL.com

16 - Foot, meet mouth. Coach Doug Pederson told the world last week that his Eagles would beat the Cowboys in Week 7. “We’re gonna win that football game, and when we do, we’re in first place in the NFC East.” Pederson surely wishes he had that moment back after his Eagles pulled a total no-show at Jerrah World, in a 37-10 defeat that was every bit as non-competitive as the final score indicated. The Eagles are 3-4 and looking like one of the NFL’s biggest disappointments as we near the season’s midpoint. No one played well on Sunday night: Carson Wentz was inaccurate, his skill players were sloppy with the ball, the defense was totally overwhelmed (again) and Nelson Agholor couldn’t be bothered to lay out. If this isn’t rock bottom for the Eagles, we have a Halloween horror story unfolding in Philadelphia. (LW: 15)

Yahoo! Sports

16 - The Eagles have been sloppy all season and one could say unprepared as well. Doug Pederson goes under the microscope as he tries to get the Eagles back on track, and his failed win prediction might put even more pressure on him. (LW: 13)

The Athletic

16 - After a few weeks of ping-ponging in and out of the top 10, the Eagles’ fall continues as our panel finally seems to be in agreement that this Eagles team just isn’t very good. Their performance Sunday night in Dallas was embarrassing, and hopefully, humbling. The Eagles look sloppy and outmatched, which is a very bad combination. (LW: 14)

MMQB

16 - We knew the defense was bad, but Carson Wentz and the offense didn’t do themselves any favors by losing two first half fumbles during the most watched SNF game in five years. Doug Pederson’s confidence appears to be been badly misplaced. (LW: 14)

NJ.com

16 - One of the worst losses of the Doug Pederson era. (LW: 14)

Blogging The Boys

16 - Fighting in the locker room isn’t ever a good sign. (LW: 14)

Pride Of Detroit

16 - Philadelphia was a mess on both sides of the ball, and a horrible day for quarterback Carson Wentz saw the Eagles miss out on a chance to take the lead in the NFC East. (LW: 15)

Houston Chronicle

16 - Doug Pederson guaranteed a victory at Dallas, but they got blown out. They’ll try to recover in a road game against Buffalo. (LW: 15)

Chicago Tribune

16 - It’s gut-check time for the Eagles after they were bombed by the Cowboys on Sunday. They can’t afford to fall much further behind in the NFC playoff race as they hit the midpoint of their schedule with a trip to Buffalo on Sunday. Right tackle Lane Johnson made it clear it’s time for players to get on the same page on a postgame show after the loss in Dallas. “Really, it’s going to probably be a call-out session,” Johnson said. “Everybody will be held accountable. You know, little stuff that slides during the week — late to practice, late to meetings, late to this and that. Stuff will be held accountable for. I think that will maybe creep into the games.” If the Eagles don’t get it sorted out, they will be late to the playoffs, as in they won’t make it. (LW: 16)

USA Today

17 - They’ve been outscored 75-30 after two games of what’s shaping up as disastrous three-week road trip. Matters won’t get easier in Buffalo. (LW: 11)

Business Insider

17 - Head coach Doug Pederson promised victory heading into the Eagles’ Sunday night showdown with the Cowboys last week, and had to watch as his team struggled in all facets of the game. After a miraculous run to the postseason last year, Philadelphia is not doing themselves any favors at making their path back to the playoffs an easier this time around. (LW: 13)

Reddit

17 - The Eagles stormed into Dallas with confidence and bravado, which meant absolutely nothing when the entire organization collectively imploded in one of the worst losses since the Chip Kelly era. The offensive line, ranked in the top 5 preseason, was horrendous beyond comparison outside of college football. Wide receivers, abysmal. Coaching, wretched. (LW: 16)

Bleeding Green Nation

18 - The Eagles didn’t show up for the most important game of the 2019 NFL season in terms of playoff leverage. This is a below average football team in all phases right now. (LW: 16)

Scout

18 - Their playoff chances fell by 30 percentage points after getting crushed in Dallas. But they still have a number of highly likely wins and could find themselves winning the NFC East if they beat Dallas at home late in the season. Their 0.4% chance is #18 in the league which is not high enough to be a good bet. Current Odds are 40/1, 2.4%. They are projected to win 8 games and come in under their pre-season futures line of 10. Their average wins per simulation puts them at #10 in the NFC. Based on money line odds their expected record at this point of the season is 4-3. They are coming up well short of expectations with their 3-4 record. Their 3-4 record this season was very disappointing. Their game-by-game odds projected record was 9.2-6.8. They broke even against the money line. They were down slightly (-200) against the money line. (LW: 10)

Rick Gosselin

18 - Defensive tackle was a strength of the Eagles when they entered the season with Fletcher Cox, Malik Jackson and Timmy Jernigan. But Philadelphia lost Jackson for the season with a foot injury in the opener and Jernigan hasn’t played since the second week with a broken foot. That’s almost 600 pounds missing from the middle of the Philly defense and that lack of a push from the inside is evident. The Eagles rank 18th in defense in their 3-4 start to the season. (LW: 14)

Bleacher Report

18 - Per the Sunday Night Football telecast in Week 7, over the past two decades or so, teams that start the season 4-3 make the playoffs about 51 percent of the time. Start 3-4, and that number free-falls to about 15 percent. Given how the Philadelphia Eagles looked in what might have been the worst loss of Doug Pederson’s time as head coach, those odds seem more like 1.5 percent. The offense was scattershot and committed four turnovers. The defense was nonexistent. It was a miserable performance that left cornerback Orlando Scandrick, who has since been cut by the team, offering a blunt assessment. ”S--t, you are what you are. We’re a bad team right now,” Scandrick said, per Zach Berman of The Athletic. “We’re not playing good.” It was the second straight blowout loss the Eagles have suffered over a brutal six-game stretch. With a trip to Buffalo to face the one-loss Bills next, there is real danger the 2019 season could get away from them. (LW: 14)

CBS Sports

19 - They have a ton of issues and are in the midst of a brutal stretch of schedule. Can they turn it around after two straight losses? (LW: 16)

Detroit Free Press

19 - No more guarantees, please, Doug Pederson. (LW: 17)

Washington Post

20 - Yes, the Eagles are beat up and yes, it hurt them to be missing WR DeSean Jackson and left tackle Jason Peters against the Cowboys. But they simply need to play better and QB Carson Wentz, in particular, must step it up. The Eagles recommitted to Wentz in the offseason with that big contract and the decision to allow Nick Foles to leave. He’s being treated like a franchise QB. He needs to play like one. (LW: 13)

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ANALYSIS

The rankings range from as high as 14 to as low as 20. The most common ranking is 16. The average ranking is 16.6, which is down three spots from last week’s average of 13.6.

The Eagles are an average team at best right now. They’re 3-4. They rank 15th in DVOA. They rank 15th by PFF’s grading. They rank 22nd in point differential.

The Eagles can stop the bleeding and rebound a little by beating a 5-1 Bills team in Buffalo. But can they be trusted to do that? We’ve surely seen Doug Pederson’s teams bounce back from bad losses but it’s hard to feel amazing about this squad.