Philadelphia Eagles 2016 schedule preview: The Atlanta and Seattle games
The Philadelphia Eagles draw the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks on the 2016 schedule, and that’s not going to make anyone who supports this team happy.
Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles are some of the most intelligent in sports. That’s a fact, so, with that being said, please bear with us for the next paragraph or so. This will be a refresher to some of you, but we do need to explain a few things for casual fans who may enjoy football but may not follow the NFL as closely.
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Many are confused about how schedules are constructed and why the Eagles are the only team in the NFC East that has to play the mighty Seattle Seahawks. This is how it works. The NFL is comprised of two conferences, the NFC and AFC. Each conference has four divisions (the north, south, east and west), and there are four teams in each division. Every team in the NFL is given a 17 week schedule that consists of 16 games and one week off.
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Each team in each division plays the other members of it’s division twice (once at home and once on the road), all four members of another division in the conference (two at home and two on the road) and all four members of a division in the opposite conference (two at home and two on the road). The final two games are played against two teams from the two remaining divisions in it’s own conference (one game at home and the other on the road) and are determined by where the teams finished in their divisions in the previous season. For example, a team that finished in first place in its division the previous season will play the teams who finished in first place from the two other divisions in its conference the previous season.
Related Story: Philadelphia Eagles 2016 schedule preview: Examining the NFC North
That being said, the Eagles meet the AFC North and the NFC North in 2016. We’ve already previewed those games here on Inside The Iggles. Based on their second-place finish in the NFC East last year, they also play the Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons. Let’s take a look at both of those games now.
Sunday, November 13th:
Atlanta
This game comes during a seven game stretch where the Eagles will be playing five out of seven games on the road. You’d like to believe this would be one of the more winnable games of that stretch, but weird things just seem to happen when the Eagles play the Falcons and are favored. Remember last year? Sam Bradford and Matt Ryan will be billed as a great quarterback duel, and truthfully, Ryan may be a little underrated, depending on what you’re looking at analyze him. Still, the team that comes out on top will probably do so in spite of their quarterback and not because of him. The Falcons are a dome team who will be playing outdoors in mid-November. Give a slight edge to the Eagles in this one.
Sunday, November 20th:
Seattle
Certain teams just have other teams’ numbers, and that describes the Eagles and Seahawks perfectly. The Seahawks even seemed to know what to do against the Eagles when they weren’t as good as they are now. This is a road game at CenturyLink Field where Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson and company have been virtually unbeatable. You see where this is headed?
Prediction: So let’s wrap all of this up. We stated the Eagles would go 2-2 versus the NFC North, 2-2 versus the AFC North and 4-2 versus the NFC East. Expect them to beat Atlanta and lose to Seattle. With all that being said, the Eagles will finish 9-7 and find their way back into the playoffs after conquering a weak division. Unfortunately, you can probably expect a “one and done” performance in the Wild Card Round.