Can the Eagles beat the Patriots?

“To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms,” one Tom Brady made this statement on his thoughts about football. The Philadelphia Eagles will be facing Brady and the Patriots this weekend at the Linc, where it will be the Eagles who need to have mental toughness.
With a disappointing first half of the season, the Eagles still are in a position to take the NFC East and advance to the playoffs. Although with injuries to Desean Jackson, Jason Peters, Nigel Bradham, and now to Alshon Jeffery, Darren Sproles and possibly Jordan Howard the Eagles chances of winning on Sunday look bleak. There have been many times this season when you look at this Eagles team and wonder “What is this team made of.” After a crushing defeat against the Cowboys in week 7, topped off with the following week as former Eagles player Orlando Scandrick ripped into the Eagles organization.
The Philadelphia Eagles were at an all-time low, this wasn’t the 2017 team anymore. This never would be the 2017 team. They had a different quarterback who has had reports that he “lost the locker room” or with an Eagles receiving core that can’t simply catch a ball. Yet, that same team went into Buffalo and beat the same team that only lost to the Patriots by six points. Then a week later dominated the Chicago Bears at home to earn their way to 5-4 on the season before the bye. With help from a Cowboys loss, the Eagles are now with the same record for the top place in the NFC East. This Eagles team is now in striking distance, but many fans including myself are questioning if this team has what it takes. The Eagles brought back Jordan Mattews and Jay Ajayi, two players whose better days are probably behind them. It makes sense that you aren’t losing your mind about the addition of these two players, but this Eagles team needed something, right? So it’s obvious why Eagles fans aren’t jumping up in down in joy, knowing that this team with all it’s been through still has a chance. It’s because the odds don’t look good.
A highly talked about word in sports is momentum. All the time announcers, commentators, players talk about how the “momentum” changes the game or season for the team. The way that this word has always been talked about is when the team is in a groove when all things are clicking. Take a second and look around the NFL, which teams would you say have “momentum”. The 49ers are coming off their first loss in the season where they blew a 10 point lead, the Saints are feeling all 41 years of Drew Brees age after losing in an upset to the Falcons, and the Packers escaped another close loss to a backup QB. So before we get all concerned about all of the teams in the league and how they are playing with their total record, we need to look at the week to week possibilities. Patrick Mahomes just lost to Ryan Tannehill last week, if you believe that this had a likely possibility than Carson Wentz beating Tom Brady at home, then that’s just wrong.
The Eagles will be going up against one of the best Patriots defenses (really the secondary) that Bill Behlicek has had. It’s not a good sign. The odds don’t look good, going back to my previous point. It may leave you not very confident as a fan looking at this game, and expecting the Eagles can win. Although, the Eagles have never been a team in their history in the NFL been a team that has been stopped by the odds. I may be coming off as an illogical, senseless, or a person with my head in the clouds but it’s very real that this Eagles team can once again go against the odds. I mean let’s be honest, Nick Foles beat Tom Brady in a Superbowl, do any of us know how sports work?
So before as we typically do as Philadelphia sports fans, get riled up about not having any wide receivers, or that are top running back will at least not be 100% but most likely out of the game, let’s think this Eagles has done it before, and they can do it again.

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