The Philadelphia Eagles’ latest loss might have been their most humbling. The Los Angeles Chargers are no slouches, but the way the Birds lost the 22-19 overtime contest was almost embarrassing. Five turnovers on the night, and just one of the sloppiest showings you’re going to see in the NFL this season.
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That Monday Night Football defeat made it three straight losses for the Eagles. It also dropped them down to 8-5 on the season, which gives them just a 1.5-game cushion over the surging 6-6-1 Dallas Cowboys behind them in the NFC East.
If nothing else, this skid has confirmed that the Eagles are no longer the cream of the crop in the NFC. They may be defending NFC champions, but teams like the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, and Green Bay Packers have a better claim to be the top team in the conference at this point. And Eagles veteran edge rusher Brandon Graham is acutely aware of that—because he’s been here before.
“I’ve been through even worse. People wanna bring up 2023 so bad. They just wanna prepare themselves for the worst. It’s like, if ya’ll gonna ride with us, ride with us. We’re riding until the end. Man, how sweet it’s gonna be when we get rolling, rolling. … Maybe we might not be the top dog in the NFC for playoffs and stuff like that, but I know that for us, we’ve got four winnable games at the end.”
Despite the three-game skid, which is tied for the longest in the Nick Sirianni era, Graham seems relatively confident. While they are essentially out of the running for the top seed in the NFC, the Eagles still control their own destiny where the NFC East is concerned. They just need to “get back in that win column”, and then the sky in the City of Brotherly Love will stop falling.
“We still got everything right here. … We’ve got to make sure we just get started with one. We gotta get back in that win column. And then we’ll feel a little better. But right now, the sky is falling for everybody. Not for the Eagles, it’s more just about, ‘Hey, how can we manage this with all the talk that’s going on.’ On top of keeping everybody together and making sure we come ready to work when it’s time to work.”
Notably, when asked if he thought the rest of the Philly locker room was as positive as him, Graham did not answer enthusiastically in the affirmative as one might have expected.
But Graham is right. There is hope for Philly. They don’t just have “four winnable games” coming up; they have the third-easiest remaining schedule across the entire NFL. Their final four opponents have a combined win percentage of .327 this season.
This week, the Eagles host the 2-11 Las Vegas Raiders. In Week 16, they visit the 3-10 Washington Commanders before a Week 17 trip to take on the 9-4 Buffalo Bills, the one tough game remaining on their schedule. They wrap up the season with a home date against those same Commanders in Week 18.
11-6 is certainly not far-fetched, and that would guarantee a third division title in four years for the Birds.
