Philadelphia has lost four straight and Jalen Hurts for the season, and our model holds the Eagles at nine wins because the defense is still a top-ten unit
Updated
Philadelphia lost 19-17 in Jacksonville and 25-14 at home to Carolina, its fourth straight defeat after a 2-0 start, and Jalen Hurts has been placed on injured reserve with blood clots in his lungs and will miss the rest of the season. Tanner McKee is the starter. The Eagles are 2-4, and when we ran the rest of the season they came out at 9-8 with a 54.5 percent playoff chance and one percent title odds, down from 9.1 wins and 46 percent two weeks ago. The record projection moved half a win. The playoff odds went up, because Dallas lost twice and the Giants are changing quarterbacks, and the NFC East is the kind of division a 2-4 team with a top-ten defense can still win.
The quarterback change is priced and the model is calmer about it than the headlines. McKee projects for 426 attempts, 3,076 yards, 16 touchdowns and three interceptions behind a 95 rating across the rest of the season, which is a line built from his small professional sample and the positional prior, and the interception number in particular is the model's way of saying it has seen him be careful with the ball. Hurts finished 89 of 154 for 933 yards, eight touchdowns and three interceptions at an 85 rating in his five games. DeVonta Smith is back and projects for 92 catches and 1,209 yards. Dallas Goedert has returned and projects for 64 catches. Dontayvion Wicks has climbed to 62 catches. Saquon Barkley projects for 763 rushing yards. Tank Bigsby is back from the core injury at 200. The offense projects for 344 points, 22nd in the league, up from 325 and 23rd, because the receivers are healthier than they were two weeks ago.
The defense is the reason the Eagles are still a nine-win team and the model has held its grade. Philadelphia projects to allow 337 points, tenth in the league, and has given up 137 in six games. Jonathan Greenard projects for eleven sacks and Nolan Smith for ten. Jalen Carter's sack projection has climbed from under four and a half to nearly six. Quinyon Mitchell's interception projection has nearly doubled to over two. Zack Baun projects for 108 tackles. Jeremiah Trotter Jr.'s tackle projection has gone from 28 to 87 as the linebacker has taken a full role. The team projects for 37 sacks, 27th, and eleven interceptions, 17th. The unit has not allowed more than 27 all season.
The division is open in a way that helps a team that has lost four straight. Dallas is 2-4 and projects for eight wins with the worst pass rush in football. The Giants are 3-2-1 and project for six with J.J. McCarthy starting. Washington is 1-4-1 and projects for five. When we ran the rest of the season Philadelphia won the NFC East more often than any other team, which is a sentence that depends entirely on the defense, and the Cowboys game at home this week at 56 percent is where it starts to be tested.
The next month is three games and a bye, and the model has the Eagles favored in all three. Dallas at home at 56 percent, a trip to Washington at 68, the Giants at home at 70, and a bye in Week 10. When we ran that stretch Philadelphia went 2-1 more often than anything else and 3-0 often enough to matter. A 5-4 record entering the bye, with three division wins banked, would put the Eagles in control of the NFC East with McKee at quarterback, which is not a sentence anyone expected in September.
The fortnight in detail: a 19-17 loss in Jacksonville in which the Eagles scored 17 against the league's best defense, and a 25-14 home loss to Carolina in which the Panthers scored 25 on a defense the model has tenth. The week that followed is the one that changed the season. Hurts was placed on injured reserve with blood clots in his lungs and will miss the rest of the year, and the model has priced McKee as the starter for the remaining eleven games. The projection barely moved, and that is the part worth explaining. Philadelphia lost half a win in record and gained eight points of playoff odds, because in the same fortnight Dallas lost twice, the Giants tied and lost and changed quarterbacks, and Washington did not win. The NFC East is now a division in which nine wins might be enough, and the Eagles have the best defense in it by a distance. McKee's 95 projected rating and three projected interceptions are the model's way of saying it has seen him be careful, and Smith and Goedert returning is a real offensive upgrade on the receivers Hurts was throwing to in September. What moves the number from here is Dallas at home on Sunday at 56 percent. Win and the Eagles are 3-4 with the tiebreaker over the Cowboys and the division's best remaining schedule. Lose and the four-game losing streak becomes five with a new quarterback.
The matchup record is a team that has lost four straight, two of them as the favorite. We gave Philadelphia 86 percent against Washington, 90 in Tennessee, 60 in Chicago, 30 against the Rams, 24 in Jacksonville and 46 against Carolina. Two wins from about three and a third expected is a win and a third under, and the two wins were closer than the numbers said they should be. The market opened Philadelphia at eleven and a half wins. Our model sat on it in July and sits two and a half under it now. The gap is the injury report, which now has the quarterback on it for good. Nine wins with McKee and this defense is the model's read, and the division is why it might be enough.
