Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 1/5/22.

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NFL teams set to lose the most, least value to 2022 NFL free agency - PFF
The Philadelphia Eagles are an impressive outlier on the other end of the spectrum, with almost their entire offense either playing on rookie contracts or being recently extended to multi-year deals. For example, left tackle Jordan Mailata was set to be a free agent after the 2021 season and is now under contract in Philadelphia through 2025 after receiving a four-year, $64 million extension before Week 1. With three first-round picks in the 2022 NFL Draft, the playoff-bound Eagles have executed a truly masterful rebuild in short order.

Weapon X Mailbag: Who do the Eagles have the best chance of beating in the playoffs? - BGN
Tom Brady is Tom Brady. That Tampa Bay defense continues to ride high after giving the Buccaneers a Super Bowl win last year. Again, they have the best player of all time on their team who improbably seems to be playing better football than he ever has before as a 44-year-old signal-caller. Playing the Cowboys in back-to-back games heading into the playoffs gives me bad 2009 vibes. The Eagles are an entirely different team than they were when the two squads faced off way back in Week 3, but I can’t help but envision a 75-yard touchdown to CeeDee Lamb on the first play from scrimmage and everything going to hell from there.

The QB Factory Reboot #42: Jalen Hurts avoids panic, Eagles-Cowboys Week 18 Preview - BGN Radio
Raichele Privette and Mark Schofield celebrate the Eagles’ Week 17 win against Washington and clinching a playoff spot. They also dissect the good from Jalen Hurts’ Week 17 performance and preview what to expect from the Cowboys Week 18.

Former Eagles GM Joe Banner: Jalen Hurts has exceeded expectations, but his season grade will be ‘incomplete’ - Inquirer
So people shouldn’t assume because they’re thinking about this that there’s going to be some moment where the light bulb goes off. It’s kind of an accumulation of observations and experiences. I’m sure they’re saying some of the same things we’re saying. They see that the good things are exciting. They see how the team has turned around and responded. They also know he hasn’t really had to play against a top press defense. He hasn’t completed a lot of tight throws — I’m not saying he hasn’t completed any. He hasn’t played against enough variety of defenses that could be challenging depending on what you think his strengths and weaknesses are. Personally, I would find it really hard to put a final grade on him right now. I’d also find it hard to invest a lot of resources to get somebody to replace him when I think there’s a reasonable chance I have the guy. As you know, I’m nervous more than the public seems to be about whether he is the guy. This is where some of the things about who they played, who they beat, how they scored, come in. Those will be discussed internally in this window.

NFC Hierarchy/Obituary: Week 18 - PhillyVoice
4) Rams (12-4): Matthew Stafford has thrown 6 INTs and fumbled twice in the last three games, but the Rams keep on winning. This is the team the Eagles should hope to face in the first round of the playoffs, which is extremely unlikely if they beat Dallas on Saturday, but a decent enough possibility if Dallas beats them.

The First Read, Week 18: How Antonio Brown’s meltdown has sealed Bucs’ fate; Joe Burrow rising - NFL.com
Nick Sirianni — The Philadelphia Eagles were going nowhere in September. They had an inconsistent offense, a lousy defense and little reason to believe things could change in a hurry. Sirianni never bought into that belief. He turned his offense into a dominant rushing attack, coached up quarterback Jalen Hurts and led this team to a wild-card playoff spot that was clinched Sunday night. There’s a lot of competition for Coach of the Year but he deserves to be in the conversation.

From 2-5 to the playoffs, an offensive and a defensive perspective on how it happened - PE.com
3. The message has stayed the same all season and it means something. Once upon a time, the Eagles were 2-5 coming off a loss at Las Vegas. Then the Eagles turned the season around and have won 7 of their last 9 games. Why? What has changed? Linebacker T.J. Edwards says the message from the coaching staff has been consistent and the players have appreciated that approach. “At the end of the day I think the thing that Coach (Nick) Sirianni has done so well is keeping the messages the same,” Edwards said. “There’s never been a panic and even when we were down at our worst there’s never been a time when everyone is freaking out. Obviously, after a loss there is a lot of disappointment and frustrated with how we’re playing and things like that, but our process has stayed the same this entire time, whether we’re winning or losing. I think from that standpoint, honestly it’s been really cool to see the things we’ve been doing and focusing on all week come to fruition. Now we’re seeing success from all of those things. “All the roots and all the talks we’ve had in the past – all those things we doubled down on, are really helping us right now, so it’s awesome to see.”

2021 Fantasy Football: 10 Facts to know from NFL Week 17 - Fake Teams
Jalen Hurts could very well lead the league in rushing yards for a QB. He currently has 782 yards, which is 15 yards ahead of Lamar Jackson and 82 yards ahead of Josh Allen. Granted, Jalen has played three more games than Lamar but he has played one game FEWER than Josh Allen.

The Winners and Losers of NFL Week 17 - The Ringer
This is a completely ridiculous situation—handled with total chill by Hurts. The quarterback side-stepped the falling fans, helped some of them up, and smiled and posed for pictures with all the fans who received accidental field passes. I already know that I could not do any of the things Jalen Hurts does on a football field, but I also could not do this. If I saw roughly one ton of humans fall 10 feet into a heap on the ground, I would not simply sidestep them and begin taking photos with them. I would start screaming and yelling “HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP WHAT JUST HAPPENED I THINK THESE PEOPLE ARE DEAD!” I would probably end up actually injuring someone in a frenzied attempt to see whether anybody in the pile was injured. Even though his protection broke down, Hurts diagnosed the situation and calmly scooted to safety so he could take some selfies with fans. The Eagles clinched a playoff berth on Sunday—and this is playoff-level composure by Hurts.

5 takeaways from the Cardinals game: The Cowboys’ weaknesses continue to present themselves - Blogging The Boys
Since the bye week, Dak is attempting a deep pass on 10.5% of attempts, and on those attempts is completing 39% for a passer rating of 80.7. But before the Broncos game, it was a different story. Dak was going deep 12.5% of the time, completing 44% of his passes for a rating of 99.9. Dak is throwing deep less frequently, and he doesn’t seem to have the accuracy on those passes when he does air it out. This has been one of the staples of his game for years, yet he is now mediocre to below average on 20+ yard throws. Additionally, Prescott’s average time to throw has decreased on these deep passes, which means that he is getting the ball out quicker. This is likely a result of the pressure rate from the offensive line increasing since the Broncos game, and thus he has less faith he will get the proper protection and rushes his deep balls. If he were completing more passes, there would be evidence he is more decisive, and the decrease in the time to throw would be a good thing. But since he has struggled on the deep balls, there is more evidence that he doesn’t trust the offensive line to provide him the needed time leading to rushed throws and more incompletions.

What should the Giants do with Joe Judge? Let him stay? Fire him? Here’s an idea - Big Blue View
What I would really like is for Mara and Tisch not to make the decision at all. The biggest problem of the Dave Gettleman era as GM is that, in retrospect, Gettleman never should have been the GM in the first place. It appears that he got the job because the Giants were the only team in the league that would have given him a second chance at the job and to get it he told John Mara what he wanted to hear. That, of course he could build a winning team around Eli Manning. Which, we know, he couldn’t. And which was a path the franchise is still paying for trying to follow. What I want to see Mara and Tisch do is hire a GM without constraints or pre-conceived notions. Conduct a thorough search, which they obviously did not do the last time. Then, hire the person you believe to be the best, brightest, most qualified person for the job and let him decide. Stay out of it. Hire someone to run the football operation and let him do that. If that person believes in Judge, fine. If that person wants to start over with a coach of his own choosing, fine. Half measures and hiring people who will tell you what you want to hear haven’t worked.

Washington’s new name will be revealed 2/2/22 and it’s not going to be Redwolves - Hogs Haven
Washington released a video this morning to let the world know the date the team will reveal their new, permanent name and logo. They also teased the uniforms and helmets, keeping the team’s famous Burgundy and Gold color scheme. They ruled out the names Wolves and Redwolves, citing copyright issues.

Wentz Remains Colts’ Biggest Problem - Football Outsiders
As it currently stands, Indianapolis holds the sixth spot in the AFC playoff picture. The team’s recent string of victories had many thinking they may be the dark horse on their side of the bracket. Coming into this week, the Colts had won seven of their last eight games, boasting a 9-3 record since their 0-3 start to the season. This loss, however, really highlights their one major shortcoming: Carson Wentz. I can give Wentz a bit of a pass for this game because of his lack of practice this week. We as NFL fans have been somewhat desensitized by NFL players—even quarterbacks—playing on Sundays after missing an entire week of practice without missing a beat. Wentz didn’t have the same rhythm on Sunday. The Raiders mixing up looks after the snap slowed Wentz down, and some of that may have been alleviated if he had been in the building all week. That being said, there are just some things you cannot simply chalk up to COVID protocols. Wentz’s arm looked bad in this game, routinely missing targets in open space. Some, like the touchdown pass to Hilton, quite literally bounced his way. Others weren’t as lucky. On Indy’s second play of the fourth quarter, Wentz sailed a ball over the head of a wide-open Hilton.

The Double Doink actually deserves a deep rewind. We’re sorry. - SB Nation
The result, the call by Cris Collinsworth, the agony; it was a moment deserving of a lasting legacy that has since become etched into our brains. But it also glosses over an incredible season for both teams involved. The Bears had so much going for them, the Eagles pulled out a miracle season to follow up the most miraculous of seasons. And then, Cody Parkey. Sweet, sweet Cody. He flew too close to the sun, bounced off it twice, and plummeted back to earth.

Off Day Debrief #70: Big Ben wins final home start + Complete playoff picture - The SB Nation NFL Show
Rob “Stats” Guerrera and Brandon Lee Gowton react to the Steelers’ win over the Browns on Monday Night Football, reset the state of the playoff picture in the NFL, and hand out our MVP and LVP points of the week. Mike Tomlin deserves a ton of credit for winning as many games as he has this year. The Browns cannot move forward with Baker Mayfield. The Colts showed why they aren’t a serious contender in the AFC. Mike Vrabel and the Titans deserve some love (and they’re getting Derrick Henry back!). Which QB should the 49ers start against the Rams? Do we feel better about the Cardinals now that they beat the Cowboys? MVP/LVPs of the Week.

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