After a short week of rest and practice, the Philadelphia Eagles head to Green Bay to take on the Packers tonight. Will it be easy? Hell no. Is this game winnable? Sure is. Let’s find out why.
The 3-0 Packers look a lot scarier than you might think. Sure, they’ve taken us down a lot in recent memory, most notably in the 2010 Playoffs. However, a few things stick out that aren’t quite the same with this Packers team.
Aaron Rodgers is having arguably his worst season and just hasn’t quite looked like “Aaron Rodgers.” He’s thrown 4 touchdown passes in 3 games, which, if you extrapolate to an entire season only amounts to about 21 touchdowns. That would be a career low accounting for seasons in which he’s played 14+ games. Considering the Eagles cornerback situation is extremely shaky and banged up, it’s a good thing that the Eagles get to face *this* version of Aaron Rodgers. Still scary, though.
Aside from the Packers offense, their defense has been the primary reason for their perfect win-loss column thus far. They rank first in the NFL in takeaways (8) and their two leading pass rushers both have more than 3.5 sacks each. Doug Pederson needs to draw up well designed plays that can get his playmakers the ball in space, and let them adlib it from there. Since DeSean Jackson is still out for this game, he’ll need to find ways to work the short game more creatively than he’s done the first three weeks.
The Packers have a phenomenal defensive front, which spells bad news for the Eagles runningbacks who’ve only garnered 3.6 yards per carry in 2019. That’s good for 25th in the league. Jordan Howard should be fed plenty in this game in order to maybe break some early tackles and create extra yardage out of nothing.
Now, obviously don’t read too much into the stats, considering we’re only 3 games in. They’re good to know, but they don’t tell the whole story. Philadelphia won’t truly know what kind of team they are until week 7 or 8. Let’s first hope the Eagles can get it done tonight though.
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