October 02, 2022
Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports
Eagles fans should hope for Carson Wentz to beat the Cowboys on Sunday.
In past seasons, Philadelphia Eagles fans generally rooted for their own team, and kept an eye on the rest of the NFC East. Now that they might be Super Bowl contenders — especially in a bad NFC — it's probably worth paying attention to rest of the conference as well. There are also peripheral rooting interests for Birds fans this season, as they own an extra first-round draft pick in 2023.
And so, each week we'll lay out a rooting guide for non-Eagles games on the NFL schedule, and yes, I'm aware that most of the below is obvious. Ideal winners bolded.
• Commanders at Cowboys (1:00 p.m.): The Cowboys remain the Eagles' biggest threat in the NFC East, and it's not close.
• Bears at Giants (1:00 p.m.): The Giants were looking like a team that could potentially start 4-0 because of an extremely favorable schedule the first quarter of the season. If they fall to 2-2, that would have to be viewed as a major disappointment after their 2-0 start. Their next three opponents, by the way:
Yikes.
Also, as noted last week, the more games the Bears win, the better. If they somehow got into the playoffs as, say, the 7 seed, and the Eagles were, saaaayyy, the 2 seed, that's an easy wild card round opponent.
• Vikings at Saints, (9:30 a.m., in London): Oh, hey, look! If the season ended today, the Saints pick owned by the Eagles would be eighth overall.
And it's looking like a strong pass rusher draft.
• Browns at Falcons (1:00 p.m.): See the logic above about the Bears being a weak potential first-round playoff opponent? You can apply that premise to the Falcons, too.
• Patri*ts at Packers (4:25 p.m.): The Patri*ts are big underdogs in this matchup with Brian Hoyer starting.
• Chiefs at Buccaneers (8:20 p.m.): A loss to the Chiefs wouldn't make much of a dent in the Bucs' chances of winning the otherwise craptastic NFC South, but a 2-2 start would put them in an early hole in the chase for a first-round bye in the playoffs.
• Seahawks at Lions (1:00 p.m.): On the other side of the thinking above that teams like the Bears or Falcons would be easy first-round playoff opponents, I think a team like the Lions would be less ideal.
• Cardinals at Panthers (4:05 p.m.): The Eagles play the Cardinals Week 5. If the Cards lose to the Panthers, they'll be 1-3 and in desperate need of a win next weekend, and those kinds of teams can be dangerous. It's probably best for the Eagles if the Cardinals look kind of crappy but are still able to beat this bad Panthers team.
The Eagles will play some of these teams later this season. I don't think it matters much who wins these matchups, but they're worth paying some attention to for future reference. Teams that the Eagles play later this year in italics:
The Eagles will play all four of those italicized AFC teams during a six-game stretch in the middle of the season.
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