Potential Eagles scapegoats if things go haywire in 2022

Hopefully, there are no injuries along the offensive line, but what if?

The most important part of an offense is the big men who play up front. If they are rolling, the team should have no problems with moving the ball up and down the field. Let’s discuss the unthinkable though. What if there’s a wild card for this Eagles team?

What happens if the stalwarts of the Eagles’ offensive line (Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, and Jason Kelce) do the unthinkable and struggle at certain points of the coming season? What if there is an injury or two? What if someone is out for a long period of time?

The answers are obvious. The critics will say the offense wasn’t consistent enough and place the blame on the O-line. Any injury to a veteran will lead to complaints of the older guys ‘showing their age’. No one’s preparing for that, but it is a possibility.

It’s one thing to say the O-line deserves criticism if Jalen Hurts isn’t given enough time to find open wide receivers. It’s another to say they haven’t opened up holes for him to run on a designed play or if he’s forced to improvise. It’s another still if both issues are present and the line can’t protect him because he’s so far from the play design that they’ve lost track of him.

We doubt that would be an issue for what’s been the best line in the NFL, but what if something occurs that we aren’t considering? What if there’s a drop-off?

If Miles Sanders doesn’t hit 1,000 yards rushing this season, the line won’t be blamed for that. We’ll blame Miles. it also may not be fair to blame the offensive line for that. After all, again, the Birds had one of the best offensive lines last season, and Sanders finished second on the team in rushing yards (754) behind Jalen Hurts (784) because of their efforts.

This unit should be ranked at the top of the league again, but there’s always the ‘what if’. There’s also the vice president/general manager and the boss to consider.

There is this weird feeling that Jefferey Lurie and Howie Roseman will blame the players for the failures of this team before they blame this coaching staff (or themselves). The reason could be the duo does not want to show they screwed up by firing Doug Pederson, who was the only coach in their organization’s history to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Howie and Jeffrey probably will deserve some blame, but we’ll see if that happens.