Anthony DiBona
It’s time to put up or shut up for the Philadelphia Eagles. With just two weeks remaining in the regular season, they control their own destiny. Could they really ask for much more at 6-8? Now it’s just up to Chip Kelly, Sam Bradford and the rest of the team to take advantage of the lucky situation that they currently find themselves in.
We’ve all seen the headlines by now surrounding tonight’s game. Mychal Kendricks basically threatened the Washington Redskins and Fletcher Cox guaranteed an Eagles’ victory. That’s a whole lot of confidence from a team that got their teeth kicked in last week by the Arizona Cardinals. Granted, the Cardinals are a much, much better team than the Redskins but those are still some questionable statements. So will the Eagles back up their talk and pull out a victory in a must-win divisional match-up tonight at Lincoln Financial Field?
Let’s take a look back at the first regular season meeting between the Eagles and Redskins in Week 4. Both teams were 1-2 at the time and the game was a slop fest. While the Redskins were without star wide receiver DeSean Jackson, the Eagles lost starting left tackle Jason Peters just six snaps into the game. The story of the game was the Eagles’ pass “blocking” with Peters sidelined. Sam Bradford took an absolute beating and was sacked five times, hit two additional times and hurried a total of 10 times.
That shouldn’t be the case tonight as Philadelphia’s offensive line has allowed just four sacks combined over the past three weeks. Despite constantly being under pressure back in Week 4 against the Redskins, Bradford put together one of his best games of the season. The signal caller completed 15 of 28 passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. It’s safe to say that Bradford looks a whole lot more comfortable in Kelly’s offense now which bodes well for the Eagles in tonight’s game.
Speaking of Bradford, he could potentially earn himself a whole lot of money in tonight’s game. Right now, it seems like many are still on the fence regarding whether of not the Eagles should sign him to a contract extension. Yet with a huge performance at home against a division rival in a must-win scenario, Bradford could be seeing big ol’ dollar signs. It seems like Kelly already has his mind made up and wants Bradford to return but whether or not that would be a good idea remains to be seen.
Either way, it appears as though Bradford is ready and excited for tonight’s big game against the Redskins, according to Phil Sheridan of ESPN.com:
“You look forward to playing in these games,” Bradford said. “Not everyone gets an opportunity to play in meaningful games in December. Obviously, I haven’t had that many chances to. You just try to do a little extra in your preparation during the week.
“Once you get on the field, you just have to keep it the same. You can’t add any pressure. You can’t try to do too much. You just go out there and try to execute at a high level.”
There goes that word again, “execute.” It seems like that’s been the key cog in the Eagles’ season thus far. Earlier in the season, when everyone was calling for Chip Kelly’s head, he preached that the team just had to execute. Yet we all questioned him and continued to do so. All of this team’s problems didn’t just boil down to execution, there had to be more than that, right?
Maybe, maybe not. But the fact is that despite their execution thus far, the Eagles have a huge opportunity in front of them tonight. For Kelly and Bradford, this regular season game could have a major impact on their respective futures in the City of Brotherly Love. Guess what? It’ll all come down to that nine letter word that just doesn’t seem to go away, execution.