100 Predictions for the 2021 Philadelphia Eagles Season
It’s time to get it back to the Eagles.
Hope you’re ready, because this time next week we’ll be over-analyzing 10-second video clips as the dedicated scribes flood Twitter with Birds footage. We’re gonna see DeVonta Smith going one vs. zero. Jalen Reagor is gonna look electric without pads. Nick Sirianni’s bucket hat will be on point, because he’s a football guy. He loves ball.
Nobody really knows what to expect from your 2021 Philadelphia Eagles. They could be mostly shit, or they could be surprisingly good. That’s part of the fun; we have no idea. And that should be intriguing for fans who watched the previous two seasons of utter slop that resulted in Carson Wentz being traded and Doug Pederson getting fired. This season cannot be worse than 2020 or 2019.
We can’t see the future, but here’s our attempt, with 100 predictions for the Eagles’ 2021 season:
- People will continue to argue about Carson Wentz, even though he doesn’t play here anymore.
- If Wentz plays well out Indy, people will flock to social media to say “I told you so.”
- If Wentz plays shitty out in Indy, the other half will go to social media to say “I told you so.”
- Kyle will tweet something like “the Eagles should have kept Nick Foles.”
- The Folesian Society will resurface around Week 3 and start calling the radio stations.
- Wentz will play 82% of of the Colts’ snaps and the conditional draft pick will go to the Birds.
- Coggin thinks Jalen Hurts will rush for 600+ yards.
- I think it’s going to be a little higher. I’d set the over/under on Hurts rushing yards at 750.
- Hurts will have more rushing TDs than passing TDs.
- Jalen Hurts will have a decent season. Not bad, but not great. At the end of the year, people will remain split on whether he’s “the guy” moving forward. We will not have a resolution.
- Hurts’ completion percentage will be bottom-third of the league, but he’ll get it up into the 61-64% range.
- DeVonta Smith will catch 7 touchdowns.
- DeVonta Smith will have more than 125 targets.
- DeVonta Smith will finish somewhere between 900 and 1,050 receiving yards.
- J.J. Arcega-Whiteside won’t make the team.
- Miles Sanders final numbers: ~900 rushing yards, ~300 receiving yards. Good season but not Tier 1.
- Miles Sanders will not play all 17 games.
- Nick Sirianni will make a rookie coaching mistake that gets him absolutely killed in the press.
- The secondary will absolutely stink and the Birds will get torched through the air.
- The linebacker corps will be slightly improved, but still stink.
- The defense will be really frustrating and porous in general.
- Davion Taylor will play mostly special teams.
- The special teams play will improve.
- Jordan Howard will not make the team but inevitably end up on the active roster before Week 7.
- Zech McPhearson will be a disappointment. You can’t draft a corner out of the Big 12. Come on.
- Alex Singleton will have 30 more tackles than the next Bird on the list.
- A key player will enter the blue medical tent in the first quarter of game one.
- By the third quarter of game three, we will want to fire the blue medical tent into the sun.
- Jason Kelce will get downfield on a screen and absolutely clobber some poor cornerback or safety.
- Brandon Brooks unfortunately will not make it through the season healthy.
- The Cowboys will be favorites to win the division, but find some way to screw it up and miss the playoffs.
- The New York Giants will be better than expected.
- Giants fans will complain about the Eagles tanking the final game of the 2020 season (which was the correct strategy).
- The Washington Football Team will not win the division.
- Joe Judge will say some dumb “leader of men” fake tough guy stuff at a press conference. He’s so cringe.
- I will successfully strike Judge’s name from the Lansdale Catholic record books.
- Howie Roseman will take immense amounts of shit from the fan base.
- Fans will become irrationally angry with something stupid.
- People will call for Nick Sirianni to be fired two games into the season.
- Nick Sirianni will become annoyed with the Eagles media corps after the second loss. The honeymoon period will be over.
- The F Lot Crew will un-retire and return to tailgating.
- Mike Scott will show up to a game.
- Eliot Shorr-Parks will say something he doesn’t believe, which totally contradicts something he tweeted two weeks ago.
- Howard Eskin will misspell a player’s name on social media.
- Howard will walk around wearing his Super Bowl ring.
- Howard will lay the Twitter smack down on that “dope,” Cole Beasley.
- Team employee Dave Spadaro will interview Howie Roseman and the Eagles will call it an “exclusive.”
- With Les Bowen retiring, another reporter will honor him by punching a colleague in the face.
- Somebody will get tossed from the press box.
- Some un-vaccinated player will get COVID and cause a mini-crisis.
- Richard Rodgers will catch a touchdown pass.
- Some guy that you didn’t even know was on the roster will score a touchdown (this year’s Jason Croom).
- Jalen Reagor will have a Tavon Austin-esque season. Something like 500-600 scrimmage yards, a couple of touchdowns, but nothing amazing.
- Reagor will delete his social media accounts.
- Zach Ertz gets traded at the deadline.
- Travis Fulgham will have a pretty good season. 650 yards and five touchdowns.
- Eagles Twitter during game days will be a toxic shithole (though, to be fair, Twitter is a toxic shit hole more often than not).
- Ryan Fitzpatrick will throw for something like 900 yards in two divisional games against the Birds.
- The Eagles will stunningly win a game they have no business winning. It will come out of absolutely nowhere.
- There will be a fan incident that the “fake news national media” blows out of proportion.
- People will cherry pick some useless Pro Football Focus statistic and blow it out of proportion.
- At the end of the season, Jeff McLane and Reuben Frank will finish in a two-way tie for most questions asked at the press conferences. Dave Zangaro 3rd and Zach Berman 4th.
- Roob will come up with some insane statistic that only he can come up with. “Did you know that Jalen Hurts is only the second Texas-born, right-handed African-American quarterback to run for 500+ yards and throw for 1000+ yards while wearing a white undershirt as Democrats control the White House? Nobody has done that since 1963!”
- Sports radio will do 97.6% Eagles talk, and the other 2.4% will be about Ben Simmons.
- We will continue to be inundated with Deshaun Watson rumors.
- Somebody that the Eagles passed on in the draft will absolutely kill them.
- Greg Ward will watch a punt go over his head and land on the three yard line.
- Josh Sweat will log 8+ sacks.
- Ryan Kerrigan won’t eat into Sweat’s snaps; he’ll eat into Brandon Graham and Derek Barnett’s snaps.
- Barnett doesn’t do enough to earn himself a long-term contract.
- Fletcher Cox, at age 30, will no longer be double-teamed into oblivion.
- Jake Elliott will miss a short field goal.
- Jake Elliott will miss at least one extra point.
- After one of these misses, people will call for Carli Lloyd to replace Elliott (h/t Rick McGovern and MOTT).
- We will happily welcome the absence of Jim Schwartz’s “sticks defense.”
- Jordan Mailata will win the left tackle job.
- Andre Dillard will fill in at right tackle when Lane Johnson goes down injured.
- Eagles fans will be calling for more Kenneth Gainwell touches.
- Fans will complain that the Eagles aren’t running the ball enough.
- Landon Dickerson will not play a single snap.
- A fan will cuss on live television outside the Linc and the reporter will say “we apologize for that” (but the FCC will fine them anyway).
- Philly Mag will publish a story about why football is dumb, or why the Eagles are dumb. Or why city-wide celebrations exhibit “white privilege.”
- The Eagles will have one Pro Bowler, and he will be an offensive lineman.
- Even as a free agent, Jason Peters will become injured.
- Sports radio callers will butcher some player’s name.
- It will take a full year for everybody to learn how to say “Tuipulotu.”
- In a Freudian slip, somebody will refer to Milton Williams as “Milton Street.”
- Joe Flacco and Nick Mullens will start at least one game each.
- The Birds will win six games.
- They will not make the playoffs.
- They will beat the Falcons in Week 1.
- Fans will be predicting a division title after the Birds start 1-0.
- We will overreact to training camp video clips.
- You will thoroughly enjoy all of the 1 p.m. start times. 1 p.m. is the best start time.
- We will all forget that there are actually 17 games this season.
- We’ll get a snowstorm game. Ed Rendell will say that fans who stay home are “wusses.”
- The Cuz puts someone in the Bagster by week six (h/t @TNickybee).
- The Eagles will finish with another tie game. It will be an instant classic.
- The Birds will score a backdoor cover in a game they have no business keeping close.
- It will be a painful season, but because there are very low expectations during a transitional year, you will enjoy it more than 2019 and 2020, combined.