Philadelphia Eagles: 3 Reasons for optimism in 2020

The 2020 NFL regular season already appears to be one that’s headed in the right direction for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Can an NFL season truly be seen as both a huge disappointment and one of overachievement at the exact same time? It’s hard to imagine that being possible unless you’re someone who identifies themselves as a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. If you are, you can agree with that statement wholeheartedly.

Before 2019’s pro football season began, the Eagles’ fan base was on fire. 2019 was supposed to be Philly’s year. They had come within a few plays of qualifying for a second-consecutive NFC Championship Game appearance just months earlier, and the theory was a team that was healthy and reloaded could do what the previous version of the team couldn’t do and close the deal. After all, that’s why all of these guys worked so hard to get back on the field. They wanted to contribute to another title push.

Then, everybody got hurt again, and things took a drastic turn.

2019’s regular-season campaign tested every single one of the human emotions: patience and aggravation, disappointment and contentment, frustration and extreme joy.

No, things didn’t go according to plan, but at the same time, Philly found a way to exceed some rather low late-season expectations. The ‘Birds’ were 5-7 with four games to play, and they needed to win all of them to make the postseason. There isn’t an Eagles fan on the planet that doesn’t know what happened after that.

A team that we both believed in early and wrote off late won a division title and a playoff game. They had given all that they had to give, but this is one of those good news-bad news scenarios. Ever since they won the Super Bowl to close the 2017-2018 season, Doug Pederson‘s squad has taken a step backward in each of the past two seasons.

That doesn’t mean that fans should panic though. There’s cause for optimism. Here are three reasons to be pumped for next season.