The Philadelphia Eagles are a team facing some pressure in the 2024 season. Their meltdown of epic proportions in 2023 has landed head coach Nick Sirianni on the hot seat as he navigates different coordinators for the third time in as many seasons.
After a 10-1 start to the campaign, the Eagles fell flat on their face the rest of the way. They made the postseason, but their stay was a quick one as they were eliminated by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during Super Wild Card Weekend.
That performance led to an overhaul of a few positions on the team. Namely the secondary, which saw C.J. Gardner-Johnson brought back to play safety and their first two picks in the 2024 NFL draft used on corners.
Will that be enough to help get them back on track in 2024? Bill Barnwell of ESPN doesn’t believe so.
He revealed some predictions for the 2024 season, breaking down teams who could make a run at the postseason. Philadelphia was one of the 20 teams highlighted in the piece, but were chosen as one who wouldn’t make the postseason after making it last year.
“A few of these teams, the Eagles included, featured in my list of teams likely to decline. I won’t lay out that entire article again, but the Eagles were actually meaningfully worse than their record last season, with their early-season performance buoyed by a unsustainable performance in one-score games. They’re meaningfully worse on the offensive line, where Jason Kelce is retired and both Mekhi Becton and Tyler Steen are already battling injuries, and relying heavily on young players who haven’t yet broken out to excel on the defensive line,” Barnwell wrote.
Losing a player of Kelce’s caliber is a tough blow, one that will be difficult to overcome. Part of their contingency plan to bolster the interior of their line was that the oft-injured Mekhi Becton was high risk and it is already not paying off.
There is a path to a positive outcome, which Barnwell noted, that includes star running back Saquon Barkley exploding in his first season with the team. After some tough years behind a shaky New York Giants offensive line, he could be in for a huge season with the Eagles.
But, there is also a negative scenario, which Barnwell also shared.
“The other one doesn’t go quite as well. The two new coordinators fail to make an immediate impact. The oft-injured Barkley only lasts half a season, and the offensive line battles injuries and inconsistent play on the interior all season. Rookies Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean aren’t immediate impact players at cornerback, and the Eagles are behind the curve in running a Fangio defense that seems to have peaked in effectiveness a couple of years ago, leading to lots of long, comfortable drives for opposing offenses,” he wrote.
He believes that the Philadelphia Eagles aren’t going to fall at either extreme. Instead, they will fall somewhere in the middle, but in the improving NFC, that still results in missing the postseason.
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