Some people are fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Philadelphia Eagles.
Your 2018 record: 9-7. Let’s see how it ended!
Oh that’s right! You went up 14-0 on New Orleans and were in a prime spot to make it 21-0, and then you never scored again! And then Alshon Jeffery let the potential game-winning touchdown drive slip right through his fingers! Buddy, climbing greased poles is for FANS, not for you at halftime. This was a fitting end for an Eagles team that needed to win five of their last six games and get some outside help just to make the playoffs, and then needed Cody Parkey to make the uprights his own personal pinball machine to get to the divisional round.
Otherwise, this was a bad-to-average team that spent the bulk of the season relying on inexplicably good karma and Nick Foles’s massive hog to cover up for all of their shortcomings. Their fans came out of the crawlspace to remain aggressively in character and boo the Eagles in their very first game after winning a title. They started 2-3, prompting calls from local stuffed heads to take a vow of temporary celibacy. I’mma guess that Fletcher Cox ignored that request. They blew a 17-3 lead to a Titans team that can’t pass the ball. They blew a 17-0 fourth-quarter lead to a Panthers team that can’t block. They had the privilege of losing 48-7 (reminds me of another score HMMMM) to the Saints, only to find a more painful way of losing to that very same team when it mattered most. Their starting QB broke his fucking back. This is what Eagles fans deserved, and yet they still deserve so much more.
Your coach: Picnic Dad, who wasn’t such a bold play-calling genius after two of his top offensive assistants left him for more high-profile jobs. Last year, the Eagles averaged almost exactly as many yards per game as they did in their Super Bowl season, only they averaged nearly six fewer points per game while a shitload of other teams blew past them in terms of production. I guess when you spend the bulk of the season getting chesty and reminding everyone about the Philly Special and all the Philly Special–adjacent plays that you like to call, you don’t get to once more indulge in same good fortune that some of our other, most horrible Americans get to feast upon regularly. Only Bill Belichick gets to get cute with his game plans, and even he sometimes pays for it.
Your defensive coordinator is still Jim Schwartz, who looks like Jeremy Renner 20 years, four failed midtempo rock albums, and five stints in rehab from now…
Your quarterback: Carson Wentz, who just got $66 million guaranteed and no longer has to worry about Nick Foles stealing his job or his wife. Wentz has not played a full season since his rookie year. He’s never won a playoff game, let alone started one. Also, some of his teammates think he’s a shithead:
The true Wentz is more nuanced and complicated, with sources describing him as “selfish,” “uncompromising,” “egotistical,” one who plays “favorites” and doesn’t like to be “questioned,” one who needs to “practice what he preaches” and fails “to take accountability.”
Numerous sources confirmed Wentz was once verbally attacked by a highly respected teammate for not being “a team guy.”
“Carson Wentz’s biggest enemy is Carson Wentz,” one source said. “He’s had his ass kissed his whole life, and sometimes acts like he’s won 10 Super Bowls.”
Wow, that’s my favorite Zagat guide review ever. Detractors say Wentz is a “pasty farmboy,” and that he “loves washing his Dodge Ram more than he loves working on his play-action fakes.” More than a few teammates came out to publicly defend Wentz against that Philly Voice report, including Lane Johnson who threw a #fakenews tag into his tweet in solidarity. I have decent Trumpdar. I know why Lane tossed that in there. He loves Carson because they both love shooting rabbits and worrying about caravans. LOCK IT IN. Carson Wentz is the kind of guy who thinks The Deer Hunter is a comedy.
What’s new that sucks: The Eagles are loaded. I can’t believe I live in a world where Howie Roseman is somehow one of the shrewdest minds in football, but here we are. Howie got Jordan Howard from the Bears for nothing. He snatched LB Zach Brown from the Skins, FS Andrew Sendejo from the Vikings, and OT Andre Dillard from the draft. He even brought back DeSean Jackson for shits and giggles. VERY excited for Eagles fans to welcome DeSean Jackson back using their best Bradley Cooper impression, and then huck rocks at him when he drops the ball for show right before scoring an easy touchdown. Just like old times!
There have been some losses, though they’re bearable. Foles and his blue whale of a penis took a shitload of money from Jacksonville and are no longer around as the best security blanket in football. Your new backups include the suddenly vital Nate Sudfeld (injured!) and the immortal Cody Kessler (injured!), who is quietly following the Blaine Gabbert career model of playing for every team and excelling for none of them. Michael Bennett took his size XXXXS shoulder pads to the Patriots. Jay Ajayi disappeared into a mysterious red fog. They also let Golden Tate walk out the door after trading for him in the middle of last season and realizing they had made a horrible, horrible mistake. The Giants, naturally, then gave Tate enough money to buy Montauk. The Eagles shrewdness is easily amplified given that they share a division with three of the dumbest teams in this league. But they won’t be feeling so processy when Jeffery forgets to close his hands around another 55 passes this coming season.
What has always sucked: In the minds of Eagles fans, that Super Bowl win validated all of their needless assholery and encouraged them to be awful, awful people from here into eternity. I know that being a dickhead pays in 2019's America, but that doesn’t mean you should embrace the trend. Oh, but these people have. They couldn’t WAIT to have God grant them every excuse to beat the piss out of each other, tear down stoplights, spit on babies, and teabag the elderly. Even if the Eagles underperform this season (and they will once Wentz has his scapula forcibly removed by an opposing DT), that’s not gonna stop these dumpster people from acting like they have the God-given right to suck, and that being the worst is the only way to be the best.
Philly bros worship that slurring Jason Kelce parade speech because it apes their habit of whining incessantly anytime someone says the slightest thing against them. They are some of the most negative fans anywhere, yet they’ll enlist their grandmothers to fight you if you’re an outsider who points that out. The Linc is worse than the Vet, which shouldn’t be possible. Every vehicle in the stadium parking lot is a pickup truck with a Blue Lives Matter flag. Meanwhile, Philly is Alabama without mayonnaise barbecue. Their accent, like Boston’s, is just the result of centuries of inbreeding. They worship gas station food. That one fan who ate the horse poop would probably not even be in the 50th percentile of bad breath at an Eagles game. The city’s most famous company is the most widely despised company in America and it’s not even an arms manufacturer. The city’s most famous college gave Donald Trump a degree when Donald Trump can’t even read the buttons on a calculator.
I’m not done! Philly’s basically a turnpike rest stop between D.C. and NYC. The city’s biggest celebrities are all local news anchors. Anyone who makes it big, even the slightest bit, flees; David Morse is the only famous guy who still lives there and you don’t even know who that is. There are potholes in Philly the size of calderas. Stray cats outnumber people there. Everyone in Philly maintains a cult-like reverence for a fifth-tier snack cake brand. The two most noteworthy cheesesteak options are a choice between flag- and cop-humping racists vs. We Haven’t Cleaned The Tables Or The Grill Since Rizzo Was Mayor. The whole enterprise is repellent and the presence of the Eagles within it somehow only makes it more unappealing. These fans love being miserable and spend every day making sure the rest of us are somehow even more miserable. They have succeeded.
Ronald Darby is a breathtaking idiot.
What might not suck: Nothing. I’m well past being relieved that you guys beat the Pats in that Super Bowl. You had two seconds of good will and you blew it EXACTLY the way you planned on blowing it. Go suck on a horse’s asshole one more time.
HEAR IT FROM EAGLES FANS!
Michael:
The last Eagles coach to beat the Saints in the playoffs was Rich Kotite.
Doug:
Fuck Donovan McNabb with a can of Campbell’s Chunky Soup.
Dave:
It’s inevitable that Carson Wentz will bite his tongue and miss the final 8 games of the year.
Luke:
90% of Eagles fans look like Turtle from Entourage. And 100% of their wives look like Turtle but with bangs.
Nathan:
I thought the Super Bowl win had made me a new man and then one week into the new season I’m threatening to disembowel whoever told Ronald Darby he could play cornerback.
Jack:
You know I’m gonna have to listen to dipshit comments whine “Should’ve kept Foles!” if Wentz has the audacity to not win the Super Bowl this year.
Tom:
The current state of the Philadelphia sports fan is watching world-class talents - Embiid, Harper - not live up to their expectations.
Jess:
Chip Kelly was a thing here!
Jack:
Every time I try to hype up the Eagles as a great franchise because of our Super Bowl victory, one of my friends reminds me of the “Dream Team,” and I have no response unless I’m offensively drunk.
Mike:
Being an Eagles fan is the one personal failing I will never forgive myself for. The last time I went to a game in Philly, as soon as I got through the turnstyle, some 20-year-old with a Joker grin turned to me and slurred “lerrrkrk atdis man.” He lifted his shirt and revealed a booze rig-up more complicated than the wiring on a suicide bomb from a 90s movie. He was the nicest and most coherent person I met that day.
Sean:
Prior to the Super Bowl win, the Philly Special was fans picking up a prostitute on Admiral Wilson Boulevard and leaving a massive shit on her bed when they were done.
Fuck Ronde Barber for eternity.
Ethan:
When Carson Wentz inevitably has his season ending injury this year, the fanbase will turn on him like he molested their kids. Fuck Nnamdi Asomugha with the bologna and cheese sandwich he ate in his car.
Dave:
It’s safe to say that the worst people in the tri-state area can be found at an Eagles tailgate. It makes me embarrassed to be a human.
David:
My boss bought me a signed copy of Believe It by Foles. This was my company holiday present, and now she quizzes me about it in all-team meetings.
Daniel:
We never have and never will have dynasties.
Jeremy:
We should’ve sign Richie Incognito and assigned him #69, those jerseys would be very popular mother’s day gifts around here.
Jack:
My second Eagles game was at Lambeau in 2014, when the Eagles were down 100-7 at the half and became probably the first team to have its nationally televised game flexed out of mid-contest.
Stephen:
Because these guys are definitely huge Eagles fans.
Bertrand:
I can’t wait for another season of watching Jalen Mills eat shit on every stop and go route. At this point I don’t know why opposing offenses would call any play not directed at Mills.
Ken:
Pretend you live in an alternate universe, where letting a Super Bowl-winning QB leave is lauded as a good thing, bringing back an aging, one trick pony of a WR is considered the big offseason move, and handing 107 million dollars to a QB that hasn’t been able to stay healthy since high school is a shrewd business decision.
Nathan:
As popular as opiates are around here, you’d think we’d be more chill online.
John:
Eagles games aren’t even fun to go to because you have to put up with 60,000 other drunk Eagles fans. I just go to Temple games now; same stadium, a quarter of the people, a tenth of the ticket price, and the immeasurable relief of not getting dragged into a bathroom brawl between Gino from South Philly and Robbie from Evesham.
The Philly Special statue has prominent Bud Light branding and should be melted down into an exoskeleton to protect Carson Wentz from stubbing his toe and disintegrating every ligament in his leg.
Ryan:
During Ricky Watters’ return game in 1998, someone in the organization took the time to create a racially-accurate effigy with a Seahawks jersey, tie a rope to it and to our mascot’s ATV, and gave the go ahead for Swoop to hit the throttle and drag this thing around the sidelines like he was in Central Mississipi and not Veteran’s Stadium (not much of a difference now that I think about it).
Andrew:
Our sanctimonious franchise quarterback has already had his knee and lumbar discs ascend in the rapture. Tune in week 12 to watch the “chosen” portions of his thoracic spine miraculously levitate toward the heavens high above South Philly after diving headfirst into an opposing linebacker for a gain of 2 yards on a 3rd & 9.
Fuck Angelo Cataldi with a stale pretzel.
Zachary:
After the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I thought that this would be a turning point. Some random backup quarterback killed the Pats dynasty for good. Our fanbase would be less toxic and apprehensive about everything. All of our teams across the city would start winning more. Life would be good.
Nope. Nothing has changed. We were still calling for coaches’ and players’ heads at points last season, not even a calendar year after they helped lift the Lombardi. Talk radio debates have been as neurologically genocidal as ever.
18 months later, it’s become clear that our Super Bowl victory means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. We were arrogant enough to think that we killed the empire. The Patriots still won last year. The rest of the city’s sports teams are either underachievers, garbage, or both. If we make the playoffs this year, Carson Wentz will miss it again, this time because he was the Harry Whittington to Mike Trout’s Dick Cheney, and this time he doesn’t have Nick Foles to back him up. He will, however, be paid $32 million per year to be injured for us when we need him most.
Matt:
How Wentz gets injured every year behind what is supposedly one of the best O-lines in the NFL is beyond me. Eli has been playing behind a rotating cast of swinging gates for the last decade, and yet the only way he has ever missed a game was when the Giants thought it was a good idea to get a jump on the Geno Smith-era.
Michael:
Fuck Buddy Ryan, and fuck you, Drew, for getting more enjoyment from one incredible Randall Cunningham season than this city got in an entire decade of having him. What a waste. And fuck all these ding dongs who want to change back to the Kelly green jerseys as if they represent some proud history. This team has been garbage for about 90% of it’s entire existence. I bet Nick Foles’ dick isn’t even really that big. Northeast Philly is just the Deep South with rowhomes and shittier food. The least surprising thing I’ve ever heard is when Marchman got his trash cans stolen.
Samuel:
I had a horrifying realization last night... The Philadelphia Eagles are now the East Coast Chicago Bears. One Super Bowl win that we will not EVER shut up about? Yup. The chance to turn that lone Super Bowl into a dynasty we will inevitably blow? Yup. Fat, racist fanbase that loves low-grade meat and processed cheese? You betcha.
It’s truly chilling.
Drew (not me):
Nick Foles is gone. The magic is dead. Carson Wentz stands, but with that broken back and those various shreds of ligament of his, he’s more hunched than erect. And his poor posture is a reflection of the team’s morale with him under center, proved irrefutably by the following:
Teams the Eagles beat with Foles starting: Los Angeles Rams, Houston Texans. Teams the Eagles lost to with Wentz starting: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans. And they got kicked in the nuts against the Saints. Are these facts cherry-picked? Not in the least.
Wentz will go down late in the season and whoever-the-fuck will replace him, and the Eagles will get stomped on because the secondary is Swiss cheese and no running back can have a good season in Philadelphia anymore, apparently.
As soon as they start to struggle, no amount of good will brought by the Super Bowl will protect the Eagles from Tony in Chester getting on the horn to 94.1 WIP and complaining about the porous defense and shoddy run game, and he’ll talk on and on about the Eagles teams from the ‘80s, as if they hadn’t won a title just TWO YEARS ago. The residents of this city love their sports teams more than their own families, and what they love even more is enshrining teams from decades ago as Peak Sport, and refusing to enter the 21st century. They will never be happy because nothing can be as good as, for example, the Jaworski-led Eagles or the Phillies’ first World Series in 1980, won after almost 100 years of existence, even though both franchises have succeeded on the highest level since.
Fuck Yuengling.
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