Philadelphia Eagles roundup: Look who this Power Ranking places over Philly

You won’t believe who this NFL Power Ranking places over the Philadelphia Eagles. We all saw the games last week right?

Heading into Week 3 of the NFL season, it appears that the Philadelphia Eagles have fallen on most of the more interesting Power Rankings. Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys continue to rise. That was even the case on the one that Inside The Iggles put together.

Much of that can be explained. The Eagles are trying to hold a nucleus together on a team that’s largely injured. They’ve also played about three good quarters of football out of the eight that we’ve all watched. The Eagles are inconsistent. The usually unstable Cowboys have been the model of consistency.

As much as it would pain Eagles fans to say this, it can be argued that the Cowboys, right now, are better than the Eagles are right now. To place them higher than the Eagles on an NFL Power Ranking after the first two weeks of the NFL season won’t garner too much of an argument from an objective fan, but a couple of other teams on this list might.

According to Kevin Cole and Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus, the Eagles have fallen from the fifth team to the eighth. That makes a little sense. That’s where ITI placed them as well, but how does one wrap their head around the fact that the New Orleans Saints are fourth and the Los Angeles Chargers are seventh?

First, let’s explore the argument for Philly’s positioning.

"With a close loss in Atlanta, the Eagles have lost the spot as the best NFC East team in the standings and in our PFF ELO ratings. Their receiving corps hasn’t performed as strong as advertised, as DeSean Jackson is their only player to eclipse 1.5 yards per route run after two games. After playing only one snap against the Redskins, rookie J.J. Arcega-Whiteside was welcomed to the NFL the hard way, catching only one ball for four yards on 54 routes run."

Cole and Riske admit that ‘our rankings don’t adjust for quarterback changes within the season’, but maybe it should. The Saints are a team that could easily be 0-2, and now, they’re probably staring at five weeks without Drew Brees. They also can’t seem to figure out if they’d rather play Teddy Bridgewater or Taysom Hill.

The Chargers could be 0-2 as well. After eeking out a Week 1 win in overtime, they lost to what should have been an inferior team in the Detroit Lions. If Philly beats the Lions, what would the argument be then?

Are we stating that the Chargers’ loss is more excusable than the undermanned Eagles losing on the road to a worthy opponent (who had just gotten manhandled a week earlier)? If that’s the argument or part of it, most would disagree. With all due respect, Eagles fans demand a recount on this one.