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.
NFC East
• Giants "at" Packers, in London (9:30 a.m.): Wait, what? It's better for the Eagles if the Giants win this game? Hell yes. The Giants aren't good. They'll eventually lose a bunch of games. This Eagles team should have higher aspirations than just winning the NFC East. They are legitimate Super Bowl contenders, and getting the 1-seed will go a long way toward helping them get there. A Packers loss helps in that pursuit.
• Titans at Commanders (1:00 p.m.): At some point this season, it'll be better if the Commanders start winning games and mess up their draft positioning. For the Eagles' purposes, it's probably best if this team's season continues to swirl down the toilet, and players are already thinking about their offseason vacation plans by the time they play again Week 10.
- MORE ON THE EAGLES
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- Eagles over/unders: How many games will they play in Arizona this season?
- Week 5 NFL picks: Rounding up the experts' predictions for Eagles at Cardinals
• Cowboys at Rams (4:25 p.m.): The Cowboys' resiliency after their disastrous start to the season has been impressive, and they remain the Eagles' biggest threat to an NFC East crown, by far.
First-round draft pick watch
• Seahawks at Saints (1:00 p.m.): Here's your weekly look at where the Saints' first-round pick, owned by the Eagles, would land if the season ended today (it doesn't), via Tankathon:
• Jets at Dolphins (1:00 p.m.): Small thing here, but as a reminder, a reader (can't remember who, sorry) pointed out that the Dolphins were stripped of their first-round pick for tampering, so if it lands somewhere before either of the Eagles' picks, it's one more top prospect that will be available.
NFC vs. AFC games
• Lions at Patri*ts (1:00 p.m.): Both of these teams have the same record as the Saints at 1-3, so a win by either team is fine for draft positioning purposes.
NFC vs. NFC games
• Falcons at Buccaneers: The Bucs are right there with the Packers and Cowboys for the Eagles' biggest threats in the NFC.
• 49ers at Panthers: And then I guess the Niners are probably in that next tier.
• Bears at Vikings: The Bears making the playoffs is basically like a bye week for whoever plays them in the wildcard round. That's good for the Eagles if they don't get the 1-seed.
For future reference
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:
- Steelers at Bills (1:00 p.m.)
- Texans at Jaguars (1:00 p.m.)
The Steelers and Texans are both probably bottom 5 NFL teams.
Irrelevant to the Eagles
- Chargers at Browns (1:00 p.m.)
- Bengals at Ravens (SNF)
- Raiders at Chiefs (MNF)
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