Inside the Iggles
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State of the Eagles’ 2015 season: It’s bad

By Austin Vitelli

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The Philadelphia Eagles are in the midst of a very bad regular season. Sugarcoating it is a waste of time. Expecting that they’ll bounce back is hopeless.

Alright, now that the doom and gloom is out of the way, let’s look at this season from a logical and honest standpoint: It’s still not good.

The Eagles don’t have much to be proud of this year. They spent the whole offseason signing people who would apparently help the team, as well as releasing and trading other people who apparently were no longer needed. Every move was met with criticism from some, praise from others, but oftentimes, just a bunch of confused, stupefied looks.

I’m tired of re-hashing the past. We all know cutting Evan Mathis was probably a bad idea. We all know DeMarco Murray was probably paid a little too much money, as well as Byron Maxwell. And believe me, everyone knows that Miles Austin is the worst wide receiver in the NFL. I’d much rather look at what the Eagles are currently dealing with.

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The defense was the one aspect of the Eagles that was usually consistent and able to keep the team in games. It was on its way to a top 10 finish, much better than either the offense or special teams could say. And then disaster struck — this supposed “stout” defense, especially against the run, allowed approximately 5,000 yards to Doug Martin and finishing with a blowout loss to the pitiful Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They also allowed five passing touchdowns to a rookie who likes to turn the ball over even more than he likes to crab legs (which was apparently enough to feel the need to steal them).

The next hour or so after the end of the game resulted in lots of tweets featuring beginnings such as “first time ever Eagles have allowed…” or “first time in NFL history…” There were about five different combinations of embarrassing statistics that the Eagles are now a part of in the history books. All to a team that was supposedly bad, but now has a better record than them, as well as bragging rights of a 28-point shellacking. Which, by the way, was in Philadelphia.

So is there any hope? Is there any chance the Eagles could rattle off six straight wins and finish 10-6 again? Well, I’d put the likelihood of that happening as exactly 0.0 percent. With games against the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals coming up on the schedule, as well as another date with the Washington Redskins, a team that for some unknown reason still gives them trouble, the Eagles could be looking at a 6-10 finish.

A few weeks ago, I stated that the Eagles still had a good chance of making the playoffs. They only had games against teams with losing records except for two, which would give them a perfect chance of finishing 10-6 and possibly making the playoffs. But with the last two losses to Tampa Bay and Miami, it’s hard to see them winning much more at all.

The logic that the Eagles should beat teams with bad records is no longer valid, because the Eagles are currently one of those bad teams. If the Eagles lose by four touchdowns to the Bucs at home, who’s telling how bad it will be when they travel to New England to face the undefeated Patriots? Or what about the Cardinals, who just beat the Bengals on national television? Good luck with that.

The Eagles have learned another very valuable lesson from this year: Dream teams don’t work. Assembling a completely new group of guys each year just doesn’t work. You don’t need Vince Young to announce the existence of a dream team in the offseason for the curse to be there. There’s just no chemistry anymore. The roster turnover rate was too high to succeed with the level of talent they were left with. There are a lot of very good football players on the team, but as a team, they are not very good at football.

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