As the Philadelphia Eagles look to earn a trip to the postseason, they do have the chance to receive a bye in the first round and a home game. However, they will need some help from other teams around the league.
With playoff implications on the line, here’s who Eagle fans should be rooting for on Sunday:
– New England Patriots: Sitting at 10-2 and atop the AFC East, the Pats are still in an intense divisional battle with the New York Jets. With that said, they will need to win their next game against the Chicago Bears in order to remain ahead of the Jets.
The Bears are currently the two-seed in the NFC playoff picture at 9-3, and they hold the tiebreaker of the Eagles since they defeated the Birds a few weeks back following Jay Cutler’s Hall of Fame type numbers.
The Patriots, with all their firepower, should be able to do to the Bears what the Eagles could not. Despite the fact that game will played in Chicago, the cold weather will not affect Tom Brady, who isn’t afraid of airing the ball out in the frigid weather.
– Carolina Panthers: Okay, maybe Carolina isn’t the best team, but who knows, they could pull off the upset over the Atlanta Falcons, who currently lead the NFC with a 10-2 record.
The Panthers have won just one game and are in the midst of a quarterback carousel. The chances of them defeating the Falcons are very slim, but at least they have home-field advantage Sunday because Matt Ryan is 19-1 in the Georgia Dome during his three-year career .
– Minnesota Vikings: The New York vs. Vikings game is turning into a mess. They had postponed the game until Monday night, now the Dome has collapsed, so the game will played in Detroit at Ford field. I just heard that the New York coaching staff has started preparing for the Eagles.
Brett Favre will play this week with a bum shoulder, which plays in the favor of New York since Favre hasn’t played well throughout the season. If Minnesota is to win, it will be strictly be from the legs of Adrian Peterson, who is coming off a three touchdown, 107 yard game against the Buffalo Bills.
Philadelphia holds their own fate with three of their final four games coming against NFC East foes. Their biggest game will come against the Giants. A win over New York will all but guarantee the Birds a spot in the playoffs.
But don’t look past the ‘Boys. If there’s one team out there that wants to eliminate all hope of Philadelphia making the playoffs, it’s the Cowboys, especially since the Super Bowl will be held in Dallas’ new, luxurious stadium. With two games remaining against Dallas, the Cowboys have the chance to knock Philly straight out of the playoff picture if they can somehow pull of two victories over Philadelphia.
Let the playoff race heat up.
You might proofread your articles before posting them G. The Vikes are playing the Giants and therefore can’t be playing the Cowboys who BTW, we are playing tonight.
Eagles will receiving no help this afternoon or the remainder of the Season from any other teams
They need to take care of their own business as they control their own destiny..
It comes down to this- if they go 3-1 and beat the GIants for a 2nd time, they are definitely in
If they go 2-2 at again beat the Giants for a 2nd time, it still looks pretty good for they would have the Tie-Breakers in their advantage over the Giants.
If the go 2-2 and one of theses loses are against the Giants,then it will be tough to make it as a WIldcard from the NFC East
If the Eagles go 1-3, then they played themselves out of the playoffs and really didn’t deserve to go to the playoffs
This team will go as Vick and their Defense takes them, right now the Eagles D is starting to do thei late season swoon and their D/Line becomes less effective and generates less consistent pressure on opposing QB’s, with the Colder,windier conditions, it will become more important to be able to run and stop the run and by the looks of the Eagle Offensive and Defensive Lines, I am not sure they are all that much improved from recent seasons (outside of A Dixon) to be effective in these areas
This game tonight will tell me and all of us fans how good or average this team really is…
paulman – you dont deserve the attn. these other guys give you in rebuttals. ill keep this short & sweet. dif. eagles team, pats should win, and the vikes could beat the injury riddled giants. too much hating by you buddy, get outta town…
I am not sure how much you keep up with the rest of the League wmonnel
The Giants have 4-5 Players back so they are their most heathly as they have been all season
(LT D Diehl returns, WR’s Nicks & Smith return, FB M Hedgecok likely to return and
Center S O’Hara will probably return next week versus the EAgles) so how are they still banged up..
The Game vs the Vikings is moved to Detroit so the Vikings probably lost their best ally which is their home crowd noise.. The Giants will blow them off the field and knock Farve out of the game and possibly out for the Season most likely– Giants 33 – Vikings 17..
Paul, you sound like Eskin on the phillies, always looking at the negative, are you really a fan?
Just pointing out the facts Jake..
When a person says the Giants will struggle due to being injury riddled, that’s just not an accurate statement.. It would have applied to the Giants situation over the last 4-5 weeks ,but now in the 15th week of the Season,most of these injured players are returning so the Giants are as healthy as they
have been all season…
And how is this an differenct EAgle team, they still ahve questions along the O/Line, D/Line and Secondary which sound familiar to recent seasons.. Am I missing something about this team..
Does having QB M Vick hide all these deficiencies like the inablity to score TD’s in the Red-Zone, the inability to make 3rd/4th Down- Short yardage downs by being physical and rushing the ball, Keeping consistent pressue on opposing QB’s late in games and over the last month of a Season, Not giving up big plays on Defense and making it so easy for other teams to score TD’s
Cutting down on the penalties,etc,etc.. These last 4 games will determine if the off-season re–tooling has worked or not and Vick is more than doing his part to lead a very potent offense, but other players have to do their part too…
Its funny how some people scream for “keeping it real”, but that does not seem to apply unless it is in the support of the Birds. I do not see anyway, that the Giants are more injury riddled than the Vikings. No Harvin, 28 has an ankle or something, 4 is all busted up, and they have no played well all season. How do you figure the Giants are going to step on their collective crank against that band of stiffs from Minn? Mike Vick is having an awesome season, but the eagles fail on D in the redzone at a 78% clip. That is beyond horrific. It is breaking an all-time league low in redzone defense. That is a very serious issue that people seem to gloss right over, assuming the takeaways will make it all better. I am not comfortable at all about the Cowboys game this evening, I certainly hope I am wrong and they run all over dallas and lay a beatdown on them, but it is far from a foregone conclusion. This season is still very much up for grabs, especially in the NFC, and this Eagles team still has a bunch to prove to me before I annoint them as anything but average and fortunate.
Andy, the d is strong outside the red zone, that red zone d, which Jake has pointed out before, is a huge problem. I see other problems with the d, undersized, not physical, no playmakers at lb, but the pessimism w this game, I don’t think it is warranted. If it is and I am wrong, then more problems next week, unless Vick carries the team with his arm, legs and whatever else. But with this game , no, journeyman qb, the o doesn’t score more than 3′ their secondary is trash, revenge factor, that is huge, and the cowboys will not stop eagles o. I initially thought close game but I am feeling a good eagles win
Coupls of items
Eagles are Ranked 12th in the NFL in Total Defensens bases on yards allowed which is ok and in the top 1/3 of the NFL, but what concerns me is that they ranked 19th Overall in POints allowed at 23.4 points per game which is not all that good and considering who they finish with in these last 4 games will probably ballon up to 25 points per game average which will prevent the Eagles making a serious run in the Playoffs.The Eagles Defense has been simply average up to this point, now if they tighten it up and get some momoentum for the playoffs, who knows.. but right now, to expect the team to win in the playoffs on the legs and arm of M Vick is too much to ask
They need to start producing Turnovers again which they were getting the 1st half of the season but not so much since Samuel’s been out..other players need to step up and make some plays..
tbl33_01
You might want to read the by line. The article’s written by Kyle Phillippi, who, by the way, is not GCobb.
GB Packers QB Rodgers knocked out of Lions game with Concussion (his 2nd one of the Season)
he will not return to the game,, Packers are losing 7-3 mid 4th Quater vs the Lions which is a big game for them to lose and helps out the Bears,Saints,Eagles,Giants for playoff standings
TB Bucs takes a late lead over the Redskins 17-10 on Freeman TD pass
McNabb and Redskins have the ball 1 & 10 at their own 40 yard line withj 1:55 left
Buvs hop to stay in playoff chase while McNabb tries to show that he can bring his team back for win which he hasn’t really done all season..
Jake, I want to be wrong. I want the Birds to go smack the Cowboys around and get to 9 wins before they head up the Tpike next week (i got my tickets for next weeks game in the mail yesterday). I just feel like the Cowboys are a bad matchup for the Birds. I have no been comfortable all week about this one, and I still see the holes in the Birds game that could end up costing them if they do not shore it up.
OMFG, Dmac is just cursed. That’s all.
Paul, one game at a time, we are not eve in playoffs yet, but this is a huge game, again that smack down cowboys gave birds at the end of last season is big. Off to gym, beer on ice, then watching the game. Cheers
McNubb’s leads the Redskins to a TD, but Kicker for the Redskins misses the Xtra-point and Bucs hang on for a 17-16 Victory which makes Bucs at 8-5 with uupcoming home games vs Detroit and Seattle.. don’t count this team out of the playoffs…
Redskins fall to 5-8 and McNabb actually had a decent game throwing 22-35 for 227 yards and 2 TD’s with no INT’s for a rating of 100 for the game.. there are simply no playmakers on that Redskin team at WR at all…
Lions defeat the Packers (7-3) dropping the Packers record down to 8-5 and are tied with the TB Bucs at 8-5. The Falcons romped Panthers (31-10) are are now 11-2 and on a roll for the #1 Seed in th NFC
Eagles game becomes that much bigger, beat the Cowboys, and go 3-1 in the Division,improve
NFC Conference record to 6-3 which are all huge here on out with all these tie-breakers that may come into play
Bears getting pounded by the Patirots in the snow 34-7 (how did the Eagle lose to those guys)
Bears Overall record will drop to 9-4 opening another door for the Eagles to soilidfy their Playoff status with a win Tonight vs the Cowboys.. TOnights win is a great oppotunity for them to control their own destiny…
The Falcons,Bucs won with the Saints winning big late in the game, so who knows, the NFC South
may end up getting both Wildcards if those teams keep winning..