Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
No limit to what Eagles can achieve this season
PHILADELPHIA » Five weeks into the season, nearly a third of the way into a 16game test, after as complete a game as they was likely to play all year, Doug Pederson said what so many had begun to think about the Eagles. “The sky,” he said after a 34-7 victory over the Arizona Cardinals Sunday, “is the limit.”
And there it was, the latest in a decades-long list of such proclamations out of the locker room of the team that gave sports quote-collectors the dream team and the gold standard and promises of multiple Super Bowl championships. It’s what the Eagles do. And even if Pederson’s contribution floated somewhere south of pro-football poetry, there was one reason to drag it around for a while: The man is correct.
There are no limits on the Eagles, not with the way they are constructed. There is nothing they cannot achieve, not with so many different ways to score. There is no reason they shouldn’t begin to prepare the NFC East acceptance speech. There is reason to start thinking not as much about reaching the postseason as to be positioning for seeding.
“Coming into this season, I think in the back of my mind you hope and you want to be a good football team,” Pederson said. “Everybody aspires to be a good football team. But the way we’re doing it, with the amount of back-up players we have used in the first five weeks, is a testament to the coaching staff and the players in that dressing room and the resiliency that they have to never quit and finish.”
The game wasn’t 12 minutes old Sunday before Carson Wentz had thrown 85 yards and 18 points worth of touchdown passes. A 72-yard TD strike to Nelson Agholor in the third quarter would be his fourth of the day. He is
performing at a Pro Bowl level, avoiding tackles, leading long drives, recognizing defenses and making a difference almost every snap. So that’s where it begins, as it should begin: With an elite quarterback.
“Carson is more elusive than people think,” Jalen Mills said. “People are now getting the memo.”
There are piles of such notes. While others were doubting Agholor, branding him as a sloppy passdropper and abusing him as an offseason punchline, the Eagles didn’t flinch. So it is that in his third NFL season, Agholor is playing to his first-draftround pedigree. The Patriots had no more use for LeGarrette Blount, but he has fueled a solid running game Sunday, averaging 5.3 yards on 14 carries. Torrey Smith and Alshon Jeffery were available, they became Eagles, and suddenly Wentz had what it took to be a special quarterback: Options.
“The biggest thing with Carson is that when he makes good decisions, he really controls the game, especially running the ball the way we are,” Malcolm Jenkins said. “His ability to extend plays, escape the pocket and make big plays down the field in tandem with our running game is really hard to stop. As long as he continues to protect the ball and make the throws he’s making ...” Then? “The sky’s the limit for him.”
So it was something of a theme downstairs at the Linc Sunday, that sky-limit continuum. Maybe they all got that idea when they gaped at that eclipse together in training camp. But why not? The Eagles are 2-0 in the division and 3-0 in the conference, with a banked road win in Washington. The Giants should play the entire division season from way behind. The Birds’ two games with the Cowboys will be telling. Aren’t they always? But in the NFC, no team is deeper on offense or faster on defense than the Birds.
“Hats off to the Eagles,” Arizona coach Bruce Arians allowed. “They played extremely well.”
They could not have played better, in any phase, passing, running, tackling, kicking, coaching. But they have been trending that way all season. At some point, it’s not a statistical spike.
“You’ll never play a perfect game, but you want to strive for perfection,” Agholor said. “We want to grow each week and we want to be competitive. I feel like we’re a competitive team. We have a lot of great players on this team. And selfless players.” It’s working. All of it. It’s early, but it’s not that early.