Philadelphia Eagles could be last playoff team NFC opponents want to see

Each season, some teams gets labeled as the team nobody wants to play since they’re getting hot at the right time, and that team could very well be the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019.

In the NFL, momentum is crucial at the end of the season.

The team most football fans think of when this concept arises is Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin‘s New York Giants that seemingly came out of nowhere to win two Super Bowls over the New England Patriots despite lackluster regular seasons in 2007 and 2011.

The Philadelphia Eagles, meanwhile, have had a bit of an up-and-down season in 2019. It seems like throughout the season they could never put together a complete game.

Either the offense would show up while the defense was torched, or the defense was stout while the offense couldn’t muster much progress.

Throughout all of this, quarterback Carson Wentz has been scrutinized for his inconsistent play. It also doesn’t help that in 2017, the Eagles won a Super Bowl in what should have been Wentz’s MVP year before Nick Foles took over before a serious injury, but at this point that story has already been told too much.

Much like 2017, and again in 2018, the Eagles have been absolutely ravished by injury. 2019 might be the worst of the bunch. Wentz has been asked to perform with practice squad players, including games where literally two healthy receivers were dressed and available.

Despite all this, Wentz and the Eagles were able to win the biggest game of his young career against the Dallas Cowboys this past Sunday that brings them to within one win on the road against the New York Giants from hosting a playoff game.

Wentz has helped make heroes out of these previously unsung players (to the national consciousness) in three-straight weeks, with Boston Scott, Greg Ward, Dallas Goedert and Miles Sanders being a few that come to mind.

After the disastrous defeat at the fins of the Miami Dolphins on the road, the run of three-straight division victories started against those same Giants, albeit with Manning at quarterback. A win on the road against the Washington Redskins followed, and finally the aforementioned Dallas showdown.

Sure, a win against Daniel Jones and the Giants would culminate a four-game winning streak to close the season against a historically bad NFC East. It’s been well documented how bad the division has been in 2019, but it certainly isn’t the worst in the 100-year history of the NFL.

For example, the 2014 Carolina Panthers won the NFC South and the 2010 Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West with records of 7-8-1 and 7-9 respectively.

At the end of the day three-straight wins is three straight wins. As of now in the 2019 regular season, only the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers have won more consecutive games.

That is tough to do in the NFL, particularly all division wins regardless of quality of opponent since they play twice per year and know each other better than most.

However, a fourth win in a row would be all the more impressive for Philadelphia, and could be a clear statement over being one of the hottest teams entering January.

In fact, the argument could be made that a win this weekend against the Giants would make the Eagles the hottest team in the NFL entering the playoffs, all things considered due to the team getting hot at the right time on the verge of elimination each week.

At the start of the playoffs, every team is 0-0, and most of the league is looking at the Eagles as the team they don’t want to face once the new season gets underway in January, whether they admit it or not.