At this point, picking against the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles is par for the course. Once 10-1 and poised to make a second straight Super Bowl bid, Philadelphia has fallen off a cliff in the last month, losing five of its last six amid apparent coaching turmoil. Oddsmakers still favor the Birds in their upcoming wild-card playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but no one should question if you prefer to bet the other way. Because while Tampa Bay may not register as a contender in the same realm as the San Francisco 49ers or Dallas Cowboys, the reality is the Eagles have been even more underwhelming down the stretch.
Should a team that went toe to toe with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas Chiefs Chiefs last February be fully counted out? No, we’re not saying that. Jalen Hurts and Co. flashed championship-caliber fortitude even earlier this season. But there are a multitude of reasons to believe the Bucs can, in fact, pull off a home upset to kick off the playoffs. Here are three:
1. The Eagles may be flat-out broken
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There isn’t a bigger concern out of Philly than this. Coach Nick Sirianni and veteran players keep harping on the fact a lot of teams would love to have 11 wins and a ticket to the playoffs, but guess what? A lot of teams would also love not to go 1-5 with a historically bad defense and painfully predictable offense starting in December. The Eagles have the talent to flip a switch, at least on one side of the ball, but they’ve given no recent indication they’re prepared to do so, flopping in winnable matchups with the Cardinals, Giants and Seahawks even with playoff seeding still on the line.
It may sound crazy to question Sirianni’s job security after three straight years of playoff berths and just one year after an NFC title, but when’s the last time anyone’s witnessed such a swift collapse from unfazed powerhouse to apathetic joke? Sirianni’s offense has been sluggish and scattershot in all the wrong spots, and since wresting defensive play-calling from coordinator Sean Desai in an unprecedented move, that unit has somehow gotten even worse, showing little ability to fight or finish. Could the Bucs be just the antidote this organization needs? Maybe. But there’s no denying the spirit of the Eagles seems sapped.
2. Todd Bowles has a proven upper hand
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Question him as a head coach all you wish, but one thing Bowles does well is deploy the blitz. The Bucs’ defensive mind sends extra rushers on 40.1% of Tampa’s defensive snaps (third most among all teams), and Philly has consistently struggled to counter that kind of heat. Jalen Hurts, in particular, has posted some of the ugliest marks of his career against Bowles’ Bucs:
| Game (Season) | Comp-Att | YPA | TD | INT | Rating | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 3 (2023) | 23-37 (62%) | 7.5 | 1 | 2 | 71.6 | Eagles 25, Buccaneers 11 |
Wild Card (2021) | 23-43 (53%) | 6.0 | 1 | 2 | 60.0 | Buccaneers 31, Eagles 15 |
Week 6 (2021) | 12-26 (46%) | 7.1 | 1 | 1 | 55.8 | Buccaneers 28, Eagles 22  |
And it’s not like the Bucs have just been good against Hurts and the Eagles. During their 5-1 stretch to close this season, they’ve surrendered more than 23 points just once, finishing as a top-seven unit in terms of points allowed, far ahead of fellow playoff defenses like those of the Dolphins, Lions and Rams. Is that partly due to their NFC South competition, or lack thereof? Sure. But with a healthy lineup featuring Pro Bowl-caliber difference-makers at every level — Vita Vea up front, Lavonte David in the middle, Antoine Winfield Jr. on the back end — it’s not hard to envision them giving Philly fits.
3. Philly’s best weapons are hurt and constrained
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Much of the Eagles’ offensive success in their last meeting with Tampa Bay came on the ground, with D’Andre Swift rushing for 130 yards on just 16 carries. Since then, however, the Bucs’ run “D” has significantly tightened up, entering Super Wild Card Weekend as the No. 5-ranked unit in that category. Which could mean more pressure on Hurts and the Eagles’ passing attack. Typically, that wouldn’t be horrendous news for Philly fans, except Sirianni and Brian Johnson’s aerial strategy has been stagnant and unreliable for good chunks of this downward spiral. And injuries won’t necessarily help.
Consider that Hurts is days removed from dislocating a finger on his throwing hand, star receiver A.J. Brown is fresh off an MRI for a knee injury suffered in Week 18 and fellow wideout DeVonta Smith is still recovering from an ankle issue that kept him sidelined for the regular-season finale. It’d be a mild surprise if any of those three misses Monday’s game, but will they be at full speed/strength? That feels like a stretch, which could exacerbate a one-dimensional approach, as well as the Eagles’ curious dependence on ill-executed screens and QB option runs. Unless Sirianni and Co. have really been sitting on a creative new game plan for more than a month, or finally feed Brown like they’ve too often failed to do, the Bucs could have the edge.
