Classic regular season gives Eagles no need to apologize
PHILADELPHIA » The NFL provides each of its teams one 17-week opportunity to win the regular season. Two will succeed, one in each conference. No more. Just two.
The Eagles are one of those two.
There isn’t an official designation for what the Birds accomplished Monday with a 19-10 victory over the Oakland Raiders. There isn’t a prize, as there is in the NHL, which forces the President’s Trophy on the regular-season champion. There was something of an on-field celebration after the game, but then again, the Eagles started doing the Gatorade-bath thing in Week 1. That’s what they do. They celebrate everything, often with elaborate choreography.
Mostly, there was just a rampaging satisfaction of winning the grand regular-season prize: Homefield advantage through a truncated conference tournament.
By assuring that they will have the best record in the NFC, even if it eventually may develop in tiebreaker form, the Eagles have validated every minicamp practice, every OTA obligation and every drop of training-camp sweat. There was nothing more they could have won from September through Christmas. Not even a perfect record would have landed them in a more favorable position.
They’ll entertain Dallas Sunday in a game that will be meaningful only to talk-show hosts who will spend the week wondering why some fans root for the Cowboys.
Then, the rules will reset.
“Now you’re talking about six teams that can win,” said Doug Pederson, of the NFC playoffs. “Everybody’s good. You have to come to play. You have to practice well during the week and prepare well during the week.”
The Eagles changed dramatically three games ago when Carson Wentz limped out of the Los Angeles Coliseum and wound up in an operating room. At that moment, they would go from special to decent. They survived last week against the Giants, despite leaky defensive play. By Monday, they were being booed in the Linc for not being able to win the first half.
Their offense, so efficient with Wentz, had no flow behind Nick Foles Monday and rarely was able to convert on third down. Their defense, once so dominating, was again sluggish, no more so than when Jalen Mills bit on a double move by receiver Amari Cooper, who completed a 63-yard touchdown play without being required to spring. Even Jake Elliott, once carried off the field after a 61-yard, buzzerbeating field goal, comically fluttered a short threepointer wide to the right.
The Eagles were certain to retreat to normalcy after a midseason stretch where they stomped every opponent. And since they were in an appalling division that they would win with relative ease, it was possible that they were due for some mental relaxation. “You can’t have those lapses,” Pederson said last week, about similar defensive blunders, “in the postseason.”
No team can have lapses in a single-elimination event. But because they were so brilliant during the regular season, at one point rolling to a ninegame winning streak, the Eagles will face fewer opportunities to have those lapses. They will have to win two games, both at home, to reach the Super Bowl. And in improving to 13-2 Monday, the Eagles showed they can do that despite playing at less than classic form.
They won the right earlier in the season to be a little choppy late. They don’t have to apologize for not scoring 30 points every game, or not winning by double figures, or not spending half the game wondering where Mike Trout is sitting so they can toss him a football after scoring a touchdown.
They have to win two home games, and if they do, can decorate their uniforms with patches bearing Roman numerals.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way for the Eagles this season. Not even their owner thought so.
“It takes a very patient, disciplined approach,” Jeffrey Lurie was caught saying during the offseason. “Short-term solutions get you to 10-6. You’ve got to draft well. You’ve got to have multiple drafts in a row, hopefully, where you’re surrounding that quarterback on all side of the ball.
“That’s the formula. It’s not that complicated.” That was one formula. The Eagles chose another.
They chose to uncork one of the great seasons in their mostly frustrating history. They’ve never gone 14-2. If they win next week, they will be 14-2.
Even the best teams find challenges. The Eagles have found plenty already, having been staggered with season-ending injuries to Jason Peters, Jordan Hicks, Chris Maragos, Darren Sproles and Wentz. And they faced, and met, a frightening challenge Monday before Ronald Darby made a late interception to put them in business for the game-winning kick.
“We support the next guy,” Pederson has said. “From my standpoint, you don’t waver, man. You don’t let people see you sweat. You just put your head down and you just go to work. You get everybody ready to play.”
Through 15 games and 16 weeks, the Eagles were ready to play more often than any other team in the NFC. Week 17 is next, then a bye week, then a short scheduled postseason. They are not playing their best in December. If necessary, they can apologize for that later. Until then, they can enjoy what they’ve earned with preparation, resiliency, determination and 13 victories. The imperfect ones included.