Well, on the bright side, there’s very little chance it can get worse than this past weekend. All three of the Eagles NFC East rivals cruised to impressive victories this Sunday, putting the once-3-and-OH Birds just a half game out of the divisional basement. But this isn’t time to panic: They’re only two games out from the division lead, they still have five games left against their rivals, and Carson Wentz is still an Eagle! YEE-HAW!!
Seriously though, the past month in the NFC East has served as a reminder that things change quickly in the NFL, and there’s still far too much football left to be played to jump to any hard-line conclusions. Just remember; it’s Week 6, not Week 16, and one bad day does not make a season - at least until the Birds smack up Minnesota this Sunday, then it’s time to start booking Houston hotel rooms.
Washington:
What Happened: What, you missed it? Consider yourself lucky. Washington thoroughly outplayed Philly from the opening gun for their most impressive win of the season, defeating the Eagles much more soundly than the 27-20 score suggests. The Birds this weekend were like roadkill you’d see on the side of the highway; the animal may not look completely butchered in the end, but they clearly never had a shot.
Kirk Cousins, meanwhile, is streakier (not a word) than a poorly windex’d window. And yet, he’s caused a streak of embarrassment for Philadelphia even M. Night Shyamalan would laugh at. (That being said, I’d still rather sit through ANY M. Night movie than have to re-watch any of the past four Iggles defeats to Cousins and Jay Gruden. Even ‘Lady in the Water,’ which was the football equivalent of Mike McMahon)
The good news? The game sealed up the U.S. Presidential Election, which means you don’t have to watch the debate on Wednesday. Also, Sunday proved a nostalgic romp for anyone who has said “man, I sure do miss the Winston Justice era!”
Philadelphia Eagles
Complete coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles and their NFL rivals from NBC Sports Philadelphia.
What This Means: Putting Big V aside, this was the most complete victory Washington has had this year. Gruden’s squad essentially did everything pundits said they couldn’t. Having trouble running the ball? Drop 230 yards on the ground. Questions about the teams mental toughness? Come back strong after blowing a 14-point lead. Have an owner that’s been compared unfavorably to Randolph and Mortimor Duke? Turns out he sent humanitarian aid to hurricane-torn Haiti. FedEx Field has become the NFLs Bizzaro World, where the team is functional and the owner is the good guy. Nothing makes sense anymore
Seriously, this team looked ready to prep for the NFL Draft after Week 2, yet they’ve now won four in a row. And they won the latest without Jordan Reed! Sometimes football is funny, in a stupid kind of way.
What’s Next: A trip up to Detroit, then a tough string against Cincinnati, Minnesota, Green Bay, and Dallas. If Washington can win just three out of the next five, expect the local media to start clamoring for a Cousins extension, which presumably means the Birds will never beat them again.
New York Giants
What Happened:
Even the GMen couldn’t save the weekend for Eagles fans. Eli Manning rallied his team with arguably his best game of the year (three touchdowns for 403 yards and two interceptions of the not-his-fault variety), and the Giants came back from two deficits (and some terrible refereeing) to end their three game-losing-streak and get back to .500.
The Giants did what the Eagles couldn’t; came back to regain the lead, twice. They were down 10-0 at the end of the first, and came back. Then they were down 23-20 with 2:04 remaining, but found the endzone four plays later. Like those painfully-slow Geico commercials with the Flubber monster, the Gmen just wouldn’t go away. Props to them.
Oh, and Odell Beckham went right back to the kicking-net routine this week, which is about as funny as a slipped disc. OBJ was also penalized for taking his helmet off too early after a touchdown, but since the Giants won, expect the local media to applaud this young man's GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR. Seriously, this guy is a safe bet to show up next Sunday in a “Make Football Fun Again” hat.
What This Means:
The Giants still appear to be, in the immortal words of Denny Green, what we thought they were. Eli started slow, and the Giants fell in a hole; he started playing better, and they came back to compete. Beckham Jr. fumbled on his first touch of the game and hurt his team with silly antics, but ended up with two touchdowns and more receiving yards than his last three games combined. And the secondary gave up a number of big plays while the defensive line dissapointed, presumably due to exhaustion from counting all their money.
Similar to Washington (and in all honestly, the Eagles probably, too), watching the New York Giants is similar to eating a bag of jelly beans. There’s greatness in there, but just enough garbage that you can’t feel completely comfortable just grabbing a handful and chewing blindly. They have the talent to show up any given Sunday and throw a crooked number at you, but unless you’re ready to risk a mouthful of buttered popcorn, don’t commit entirely.
What’s Next:
A trip to Twickenham Stadium in London, England, vs. the probably-not-that-great Los Angeles Rams. Following a trip to the most British-sounding-stadium-ever, the Giants will be the second NFC East rival the Iggles face coming off a bye, proving once again the NFL schedule makers hate Carson Wentz.
Dallas Cowboys
What Happened:
Because there is no joy in Mudville this week, the Eagles deflating defeat was followed up by a 30-16 cruise-control victory for the Dallas Cowboys in Green Bay Sunday afternoon. For those who stuck around instead of trashing their televisions in disgust, it was like waking up with a mind-splitting hangover only to discover your refrigerator is empty and the Seamless servers are down. “Well, today started off bad but at least it can’t get… OH WHY DO YOU PUNISH ME, CRUEL AND MERCILESS FOOTBALL GODS!?!”
As typically happens when your team goes into halftime up 17-6, everyone looked impressive for Dallas this weekend. Prescott played well (albeit human, with an INT and two fumbles), Cole Beasley is becoming everything Iggles fans want Nelson Agholor to be (two touchdowns on six catches), and the defense forced Green Bay into four turnovers (including three recovered fumbles).
The aforementioned defense forced Rodgers into probably his worst performance of the season, though that may have had more to do with all those voodoo dolls Brett Favre has spent his retirement building. Seriously, what else could the guy be doing? Y’know, beyond hocking jeans and cheap razors.
But the story, again, was Ezekiel Elliott, who has 158 yards on 28 attempts. Perhaps most impressively, Double-E did it against the best rushing defense in the league, and he’s performing so well that even fivethirtyeight wrote about him. That’s the kind of next-level analytic stuff even Ruben Amaro has to tip his first base hat to. Elliot now leads the league in rushing yards (LeSean McCoy and DeMarco Murray are 2nd and 3rd, respectively, a fact that no doubt makes Howie Roseman gassy).
In unrelated news, former Cowboy-slayer Donovan McNabb is now asking whether dem’ Boys should look to trade Romo AND Dez, which I don’t know, somehow makes the whole thing worse.
What This Means:
When you went through the Dallas schedule at the start of the year, Week 6 probably felt like a safe place. “Oh, this’ll be around the time Doug Pederson thinks of benching Sam Bradford, and at least we know the Cowboys will lose at Green Bay. What a happy time to be alive!”
And yet here we sit, entering Week 7, and the Cowboys closest threat in the division is the streaky crew from D.C., whom they’ve already beaten once. The fact that Dallas’ success has been generated by a rookie tandem the NFL that makes Jerry Jones sweat bourbon in excitement makes the entire thing more haunting than crab spiders (which in theory, are more afraid of me than I am of them).
Here’s a horrifying thought; The only team with a better record in the entire conference is the one lead by Sam stinkin’ Bradford.
That being said; if ten weeks from now the Cowboys aren’t in the NFL postseason, it’ll mean one of the two scenarios has occurred: either Dax and/or Zeke has proven to not be half as good as they’ve looked so far, OR Jones has put Tony Romo back in as starter, which has results in a Classic Cowboys December Collapse. I’d put the odds on the latter at a strong 50/50.
What’s Next: A bye week, which guarantees one thing; next week can’t be nearly as bad!
