After closing out the regular season with a week 18 victory against the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles will host the Green Bay Packers in a Sunday evening Wild Card matchup. The well rested Eagles, who will be the healthiest they have been in multiple weeks, will look to advance to the divisional round as they face a Packers team that is relatively banged up.
The Philadelphia Eagles struggled to begin the season, with 2 of their 3 losses of the season coming in the first 4 games of the season as they suffered a nail biting loss to the Atlanta Falcons in week 2 and a blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week 4. After the week 4 defeat, the Eagles Went on a 10 game win streak, definitively defeating teams such as the Bengals, Rams, Ravens, and the Steelers.
Their only other loss of the season came in a 3-point week 16 loss on the road against the Washington Commanders. Ironically, this is the game in which Eagles star Quarterback Jalen Hurts suffered a concussion early in the first quarter after a hard hit. This concussion caused Hurts to miss the remainder of the regular season, however as of Friday evening he has been cleared to play in Sunday’s Wild Card matchup.
Also for the Eagles, star running back Saquon Barkley will be ready to play after controversially missing week 18’s matchup against the New York Giants to rest. Barkley, who was just 100 yards away from breaking the all time NFL record for single-season rushing yards originally set by Eric Dickerson who finished the 1984 regular season with 2,105 total rushing yards.
Though many Eagles fans were reasonably upset that Barkley was not given the chance to have a storybook ending for his first season on the team by breaking an all time record against the team that essentially let him walk after giving them 6 amazing seasons, I’m sure they will be more pleased with a lengthy playoff run and a well rested Saquon Barkley.
On the other side of the equation, the Green Bay Packers are dealing with a handful of injuries themselves.
In their week 18 loss to the Chicago Bears, Packers Wide Receiver Christian Watson was carted off the field after suffering a season ending knee injury, which is widely speculated to have been an ACL tear. This is a terrible loss for Green Bay, as Watson led the Packers in average yards per reception at 21.4 yards per catch on the season.
Packers starting quarterback Jordan Love suffered an elbow injury in the same game, landing hard on high right elbow as well as experiencing numbness in his throwing hand. However, luckily for Green Bay, Love was left off of the injury report ahead of Sunday’s game and was a full participant in Thursday’s practice.
The Packers Have a threatening running back Themselves in Josh Jacobs, whom they rely heavily on. Green Bay finished 30th in the league in pass attempts per game this season, ahead of only the Baltimore Ravens who have star running back Derrick Henry, and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Jacobs finished 6th in the league for total rushing yards with 1,329 yards, and 4th in the league for total rushing touchdowns with 15. Funny enough, Jalen Hurts finished 5th, just one place behind Jacobs with 14 rushing touchdowns of his own.
Though the fact that Hurts, a quarterback, is among the league leaders in rushing touchdowns this season is impressive, it is also a cause for concern when you consider just how important Hurts’ running ability is to the Eagles success. This coupled with the fact that if the Eagles want to have a lengthy playoff run and hopes of a championship, they will likely have to minimize the physicality Hurts will have to endure in this first playoff game against the Packers could cause some issues in this matchup.
One of the things that makes the Eagles successful is Hurts ability to put his head down and run the ball a few yards in the red zone. However, the Eagles could face some problems in that red zone offense as well as take a hit on their threatening ability to so often convert on fourth downs now that they need to try to limit the physicality with Jalen Hurts to put him in the best position to be available for the team for what they hope to be a lengthy playoff run.
Another cause for concern is that reducing Hurts’ rushing will likely lead to an increase in Barkley’s usage, which is likely the reason why they chose to rest Saquon in week 18. This could lead to some issues because Green Bay’s running back defense is among the best in the league. The Packers defense could potentially fare well against Barkley, as they are tied for the 5th best running back defense in the league, allowing an average of only 4.1 yards per carry this season.
However, to the advantage of Philadelphia, if necessary they are capable of throwing the ball and they have plenty of weapons in that field as well, with options such as A.J. Brown and Dallas Goedert.
Though the Eagles definitely have some obstacles to hurdle and a large task at hand, they are more than capable of overcoming any adversity they face and winning not only this game, but they have a serious case for becoming Super Bowl champions once again.
