The Eagles were the most bizarre team in the NFL last season. First, they surged, then they flopped. There wasn’t even a home playoff date.
Instead, the Eagles, who at one time were 10-1, ended their season with a dismal first-round playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Bucs. There were far more negative questions after that 32-9 loss than there were positives about the season.
So what will the Eagles look like in 2024? Will last season be an aberration with the Fly Eagles Fly crowd? Do they return to the team capable of winning a Super Bowl?
Cynthia Frelund, an analytics expert with NFL Network, broke down projected win totals for all 32 teams. She’s predicting the Eagles with right themselves with 11.1 wins, the No. 2 seed in the NFC and an Eastern Division championship. Frelund used stats, history and trends for her projections. There are no gut feelings with these forecasts.
“Using the projected 53-man rosters as of May 14, I ran 150,000 simulations for all 272 regular-season games,” she wrote.
She also noted “remember, these simulations account for many contextualized data points that have been proven to correlate to wins and losses based on historical football games that were actually played.”
Here’s how many wins for the Eagles along with other odds
- Win Total: over 10.5 (-115)
- Make Playoffs: -220
- Win Division: +115
- Win Conference: +650
- Win Super Bowl: +1600
Frelund explained her reasoning for the Eagles.
“Sure wouldn’t mind hitting São Paulo in Week 1 for the Friday night contest between Philadelphia and Green Bay. Can someone convince my boss that I need to be there?
“Eagles fans certainly enjoyed the high-profile signing of Saquon Barkley, but don’t forget about the new faces on the other side of the ball: veterans Bryce Huff and Devin White, as well as two of my top three cornerback prospects from this year’s draft in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. And of course, versatile cover man C.J. Gardner-Johnson is back in the fold.
“According to my calculations at the moment, the Eagles have one back-to-back where they’re not favored in either game: the two-week road trip to face the Rams and Ravens as the calendar flips from November to December. However, they are within striking distance in each contest (less than 3.0 percentage points), so this could easily shift before the season starts — especially consider Philly has a mini bye immediately preceding that stretch, thanks to a Thursday night home game in Week 11.”
Of course, Hurts lost his center, Jason Kelce, who retired after 2023. He has a new TV career.
Frelund placed the 49ers just ahead of the Eagles in the race for the playoffs. The Lions, who no longer can be called up starts, are third with 10.6 wins. The Falcons are a surprise fourth at 9.9 victories. Atlanta gets credit for signing Kirk Cousins at quarterback.
The final three playoff teams predicted in this early look at 2024 are the Packers at 9.8, Rams at 9.2 and the Cowboys at 9.1.
You can check out all of Frelund’s predictions here. And check out On3.com’s NFL coverage here.
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