Eagles News: ESPN compares 2019 Eagles to the 2011 Giants

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Barnwell’s guide to the 2019 NFL playoffs: How all 12 teams can win the Super Bowl - ESPN
Past Super Bowl comp: It’s tough to find a team that fits the bill here, given that no Super Bowl winner has ever posted a losing record outside of its division during the regular season. The 2008 Cardinals and 1979 Rams, both runners-up, are the only teams to even make it to the Super Bowl with a losing record outside of their division. I’m going to instead go with the 2011 Giants, who went 6-4 outside of the NFC East that season. Like the Eagles, those Giants seemed to bury their chances with a November losing streak, dropping five of six, including a defeat by a Rex Grossman-led Washington team. They were able to salvage their playoff chances because the rest of the division was hovering around .500. It wasn’t pretty, but the Giants pulled off a two-game winning streak by beating the Jets in a game in which Eli Manning went 9-of-27 passing and Mark Sanchez threw the ball 59 times, and dispatching the Cowboys in a Week 17 play-in game for the division title. They then ran the table as the 9-7 fourth seed in the NFC, which is exactly where the Eagles begin now.

Seahawks writer gives three reasons why the Eagles will win in the wild card round - BGN
Bleeding Green Nation already took some time to chat with Field Gulls in order to preview the Philadelphia Eagles versus Seattle Seahawks wild card game and [you can read that here]. Today, we’re back with three reasons why each team might lose. This exchange allows us to show what the other side is concerned about. Read on for why the Seahawks could lose, as written by Mookie Alexander of Field Gulls. To see why I think the Eagles could lose, check out this post on FG.

The Kist & Solak Show #166: Stopping the Seahawks - BGN Radio
Michael Kist & Benjamin Solak start their two-part preview series of the Eagles-Seahawks Wild Card showdown with thoughts on how the matchup between the Seahawks offense and Eagles defense will go down! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Three reasons why the Eagles will lose to the Seahawks - Field Gulls
Round two between the Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles is just two days away, only this time the loser’s next game will be in September, while the winner is headed for the NFL Divisional Round. Last time these teams met, Seattle won 17-9 in a game that could’ve been the hammer blow for Philadelphia’s season, but instead they rallied from 5-6 to 9-7 and take the NFC East. Will the rematch be any different? Well considering the Seahawks are starting Travis Homer and Marshawn Lynch at running back, while the Eagles somehow got even more injured at the wide receiver position, the answer is “yes.” Will the outcome of a Seahawks win be the same? We hope so, and we also have Brandon Lee Gowton of Bleeding Green Nation here to provide three reasons why Philly’s spirited surge will come to an end against Seattle. If you want to read my three reasons the Seahawks will lose to the Eagles, check it out on BGN.

These Patched-Together Eagles Are Philadelphia’s Perfect Team - The Ringer
Barely a month ago, the Eagles were 5-7 going into their first matchup with the Giants. There was little love for that version of the team. As Rodney McLeod told the Inquirer, “Everybody kind of wrote us off.” “Kind of” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. After starting 5-4, the Eagles lost to the Patriots (disappointing but not surprising), the Seahawks (disappointing but not surprising), and the Dolphins (disappointing and surprising) in succession. Not to mention ugly losses that came earlier in the season to the Falcons, Vikings, and Cowboys. Things were so bad that the highlight of the season was one of the team’s underproductive receivers becoming an all-time great meme. By the time that first Giants game rolled around in early December, Eagles fans were back to their natural and comfortable default position—booing everything and everyone.But then players kept getting hurt, and the Eagles kept winning games, and now the no-name fill-ins have filled the void in Philly’s collective cold, black heart. The Eagles are the NFC East champs and home underdogs in the playoffs—which, as my friend and former colleague Mike Sielski wrote, is exactly the way Philly likes it. The Birds were completely left out of the NFL’s official playoff promo video. That’s the kind of thing Eagles fans eat up. The entire city is functionally one big bulletin board eager to lean into any sort of we-were-overlooked motivational material.

Podcast: Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson continue to be awesome - PhillyVoice
The Philadelphia Eagles are back in the playoffs for the third straight season after running the table through the quarter pole of the season, and they will take on the Seattle Seahawks in the wildcard round. Brandon Lee Gowton and I recapped the Eagles’ win over the Giants and previewed Eagles-Seahakws in BGN Radio episode No. 100.

NFC Wild-Card Playoff Preview 2020 - Football Outsiders
The story of this game may be told by Seattle’s defensive trends. The Seahawks defense had radical splits by quarter, going from 28th in DVOA in the first quarter to 10th in the second, second in the third, and then next to last in the fourth. This could be a game where the Eagles grab an early lead and lose it around halftime before staging a furious rally late. Remember: all Russell Wilson games end up close eventually. If Seattle wins this game, it will likely because Wilson and his receivers get just enough big plays downfield to generate points, while their defense takes away big plays hoping the Eagles drives will bog down around midfield. If Philadelphia wins, it should be because they played station-to-station football with runs and short passes, finished drives in the red zone, and got enough pass rush to cover up for their holes in the secondary. Of those two scenarios, the first seems slightly more probable. The Seahawks were the better team over the course of the season, and they are the healthier team going into this weekend.

Jeff Ratcliffe’s fantasy football focus: Facts, predictions, and tips for Wild Card weekend - PFF
Matchup upgrade: This is a phenomenal matchup for the Eagles tight ends, with the Seahawks allowing the second-most fantasy points per game to tight ends in the regular season. Zach Ertz has yet to be cleared for contact and is very much up in the air for this one. If he doesn’t suit up, expect to see a ton of Dallas Goedert. The young tight end has topped double-digit targets in each of the last two weeks and figures to be heavily involved yet again. Even if Ertz plays, Goedert is one of the top DFS options of the week. Don’t be fooled by the box score from the previous meeting between these two. D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett combined for just four catches in that contest with neither player producing appealing fantasy numbers. But their lack of production was more the product of the weather than it was the product of the Eagles’ defense. Philly struggles against speed, which means advantage Metcalf and Lockett.

The 8-Point Lead: Carson Wentz said he needed to ‘be better’ six weeks ago. He did just that. - The Athletic
A question began “In your career against Seattle …” and Pederson knew where it was going. For all the success he has achieved in four years, Pederson, a native of the Seattle area, has never beaten his childhood team.. The Pederson-coached Eagles have played three games against the Seahawks. They’ve lost all three games. And they haven’t scored more than 15 points, a rarity for Pederson’s offense. In 64 regular-season games, Pederson’s teams have scored 15 or fewer points only nine times. 2016: Seahawks 26, Eagles 15. 2017: Seahawks 24, Eagles 10. 2019: Seahawks 17, Eagles 9. The Eagles have had at least two turnovers in each of those games, and they had five turnovers in the November loss to Seattle. That’s a good place to start when identifying why they’ve lost.

Paul Lancaster is the players’ confidant - PE.com
On his very first day as a Philadelphia Eagle at the NovaCare Complex, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside sat down with Paul Lancaster and felt an immediate sense of comfort. Arcega-Whiteside felt so comfortable that he nearly fell asleep on the brown leather couch in Lancaster’s office down the hall from the players’ locker room. Lancaster took no offense to Arcega-Whiteside nearly dozing off. In fact, he expected it. “As soon as everybody sits down on that couch, they fall asleep,” Lancaster told Arcega-Whiteside. “If you want to take a nap, go ahead.” To be fair, the rookie receiver had good reason to be a little sleepy. He was merely hours removed from being selected in the second round of the 2019 NFL Draft, which was followed by a sudden trip to Philadelphia, where coaches and front-office staff greeted him with dozens of handshakes and hugs.

Why each team could win Super Bowl 54 - DraftKings Nation
Philadelphia Eagles: +3000. The injury bug has been brutal for the Eagles, and yet they managed to win out their NFC East slate to capture the division. They get one home game, and if they can advance from there, it buys some of their injured players a little more time to get healthy. If they can get four games from Derek Barnett, and at least three from Zach Ertz, they could get hot and make a run. Carson Wentz is one of the big x-factors given he has never appeared in a playoff game.

A way-too-early 2020 NFL mock draft - Fake Teams
21. Philadelphia Eagles: Henry Ruggs III, WR, Alabama. I’ll freely admit I’ve kinda been holding onto Ruggs to fall nicely to the Eagles. Remember how amazing DeSean Jackson was when healthy with Carson Wentz tossing him bomb after bomb downfield. Yea, now you get why I wanted the speedster Ruggs to fall here.

How Lamar Jackson Will Change the NFL in the 2020s - B/R
The NFL has never seen anything quite like Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. But we nearly saw something just like them a decade ago, when Michael Vick became the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. ”When we signed Vick, the vision was somewhat similar to what the Ravens are doing,” former Eagles president Joe Banner told Bleacher Report. “Andy [Reid] had a vision that you could merge college spread concepts with NFL West Coast concepts and create a hybrid in which you got the best of both worlds.” Ultimately, Reid merely added some read-option fins and spoilers to his West Coast offense power train. But it worked: Vick led the Eagles to the playoffs while earning a Pro Bowl berth and Comeback Player of the Year honors.

Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer has been linked to the Cowboys job by four different outlets - Blogging The Boys
In the span of a single week, four different NFL insiders and outlets all named Mike Zimmer as a potential option for the Dallas Cowboys in some capacity. All of this happened in spite of the fact that Zimmer’s team, who he is currently the head coach of, is playing a playoff game at the end of the week. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence. The situation regarding the Cowboys head coach is obviously one of great intrigue, and given the week we have all been experiencing, one of great mystery. It certainly would explain some of the apparent patience that the Cowboys have exhibited if they truly were of the understanding that they could simply (being casual with this term admittedly) trade for Zimmer when Minnesota’s season ends, but this can’t all be so easily explained can it? If there is one thing that can’t be easily explained it’s why a head coach that is under contract for next season continues to be linked to a job that isn’t even open and has been so by so many different people.

Giants coaching search: Mike McCarthy interview is next step - Big Blue View
An interview with former Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy on Friday will be the next step in the New York Giants search for a head coach. McCarthy, of course, has the deepest resume of any of the seven candidates the Giants currently identified. McCarthy has a 125-77-2 regular season record, a .618 winning percentage. His teams are 18-10 in the playoffs, and Green Bay won the 2010 Super Bowl under his direction.

Redskins Rumors: GM won’t be hired until after the draft, Morocco Brown a leading candidate - Hogs Haven
What about the General Manager and Team President positions currently open with the team? Will they both be filled? Will someone already in the front office be promoted? No one knows for sure right now, but we keep getting reports putting potential names out there. The latest rumor comes from Jason La Canfora who says the Redskins don’t plan on hiring a GM until after this year’s draft which will be held April 23-25 this year. This has been reported before and it was also Bruce Allen’s plan after Scot McCloughan was fired. The Redskins never did actually hire a GM in 2017, they rearranged the front office and had several people working together under Allen.

The 25 players who could decide the NFL playoffs - SB Nation
23) Carson Wentz — Early in the season, Wentz looked like he was regressing. The Eagles quarterback finished the year strong, though. In the last four games of the regular season, he threw seven touchdowns with no interceptions and posted a 100.8 passer rating. Wentz did this with a wide receivers corps full of castoffs. With DeSean Jackson, Alshon Jeffery, and Nelson Agholor all out, Wentz made do with a rag-tag group of replacements and led the Eagles to the NFC East crown. [...] 25) Fletcher Cox — It hasn’t been an impressive season for Cox by his lofty standards. He only posted 3.5 sacks in 2019. But when the Eagles needed their star defensive tackle to make plays, he did. He recovered a fumble in Week 17 that all but guaranteed the Eagles got to the playoffs. He also forced a fumble in a crucial Week 16 game against the Cowboys. Don’t think a slow year means Cox can’t make life difficult for opponents in January.

...

Social Media Information:

BGN Facebook Page: Click here to like our page

BGN Twitter: Follow @BleedingGreen

BGN Instagram: Follow @BleedingGreenInsta

BGN Manager: Brandon Lee Gowton: Follow @BrandonGowton

BGN Radio Twitter: Follow @BGN_Radio