Eagles make Super Bowl, Jalen Hurts sets franchise record: Second-half predictions

You, over there. How would you like to know the future?

Come inside, take a load off, clear your head and peer into my crystal ball. Here is what will happen over the second half of the Philadelphia Eagles’ season. Eight facts for eight wins so far.

Dallas Goedert rushes for a first down or touchdown

Let’s get the most specific one out of the way. You may know Goedert is arguably the league’s best YAC receiver, with 8.7 yards after catch per reception on the season, per TruMedia, second only to the San Francisco 49ers’ Deebo Samuel among wide receivers and tight ends. That’s a result of both his tackle-breaking ability/speed in the open field and the way in which the Eagles use him on offense. Because so many of his catches are on designed screens, he has the highest expected YAC per reception in the league, according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats. So we know Nick Sirianni and Shane Steichen trust him with the ball in his hands.

We also know the Eagles have been successful in short-yardage situations, thanks in part to a willingness to lean on quarterback sneaks. But as they look to limit that dependency, we might see more wrinkles, like we did against Pittsburgh in the first game after the bye when they rushed to the line before Jalen Hurts quickly pitched the ball outside for a first down. We’ve seen the occasional tight end sneak used across the league in recent years, and with Jason Kelce making his fascination with the sneak known on his podcast, maybe Sirianni will throw Goedert that bone. The other possibility is a version of the (unsuccessful) Zach Pascal end around that we saw on fourth down against Washington in Week 3.

Jalen Hurts sets the franchise record for total touchdowns in a season 

Hurts has 12 passing and six rushing touchdowns through the team’s first eight games. That puts him on pace to break the franchise record for total touchdowns in a season, as he follows a long line of dual-threat quarterbacks. Randall Cunningham’s 35 in 1990 (30 passing, five rushing) is the mark to beat.

Hurts has an extra game on the schedule in his favor, but let’s go ahead and say he gets it done in Week 17 before the team’s starters potentially rest in Week 18.

Marcus Epps signs a long-term extension 

The Eagles have a long list of pending free agents, including starters Fletcher Cox, Javon Hargrave, James Bradberry, T.J. Edwards, Kyzir White, Epps, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Isaac Seumalo and Miles Sanders. Add rotational players/key backups such as Robert Quinn, Andre Dillard, Pascal and Gardner Minshew, and you have the makings for a lot of front-office paperwork (and maybe a 2024 compensatory pick windfall).

Last year, the Eagles signed four young, homegrown players to long-term extensions during the season. Epps, to me, is the most likely in-season candidate for an extension this time around because he is young, in his first season in a starting role, well-thought-of as a locker room presence and potentially willing to forfeit the promise of free agency for the security of a long-term deal with a guaranteed role he might have to fight for elsewhere. Gardner-Johnson, on the other hand, is less of a known quantity in the building personality-wise and might be less likely to settle for a long-term deal without knowing his open-market price, especially while he leads the league in interceptions.

Edwards is a reasonable candidate, though the team-building philosophy doesn’t budget much for his position, and Nakobe Dean is theoretically on deck for one of two starting roles. Hargrave is probably the second-likeliest extension candidate because Howie Roseman probably doesn’t want to deal with replacing both him and Cox in the offseason. Hargrave is playing well and has already been through the big-money free-agency process. There’s probably a compromise to be had there.

GO DEEPER

How Eagles' Marcus Epps built a gym and NFL career at the same time

The defense finishes in the top 10, but outside the top five 

This is based on Football Outsiders’ DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), where the Eagles rank No. 3 through the first eight weeks of the season. They rank No. 2 in pass defense DVOA and No. 27 in run defense DVOA. There’s probably some regression that’ll pull both of those rankings closer to the middle, but the biggest reason the Eagles are likely to fall down the overall leaderboard a bit is their (probably) unsustainable ability to force turnovers. The Eagles lead the league with 18 takeaways (12 interceptions, six fumble recoveries).

“I kind of laugh at that,” defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon said earlier this week when asked about the role of “luck” in their ability to force turnovers. “That’s the first time I heard it’s luck. We coach that and we have players that take the ball away. There’s nothing lucky about that.

“Now … I always say takeaways come in bunches. You might go a couple games and not have one and all of a sudden you have a takeaway explosion. … I think that’s the main thing — when you do get your opportunities, do you capitalize on them? Where we dropped some last year and we had some chances, I think we’re doing a good job of capitalizing on them. As long as you’re capitalizing on your opportunities when you get them, because you don’t know when they’re going to come up, that stat should stay where it’s at for us.”

I think there’s a lot of truth to Gannon’s point. No doubt they rep those things often and there’s something to be said for a top-down organizational emphasis turning into results on the field. Playing from ahead also has a lot to do with those interception numbers. But all it takes are a few fumble bounces going the other way or some difficult would-be interceptions dropped to bring the defense near the middle of the pack.

They do not set the franchise record for point differential

Through eight games, the Eagles have a plus-90 point differential, which puts them on pace to break the post-merger franchise mark of 174 set by the 2002 team. But while the teams on the Eagles’ schedule in the second half of the season are underwhelming — they have the fourth-easiest schedule the rest of the season, according to Football Outsiders — the relentlessness of the schedule from here on out could lead to some letdowns. With their bye week and the post-Thursday mini-bye in the rearview mirror, the Eagles now stare down the barrel of nine weeks in a row with a Monday-Sunday-Saturday game.

Let’s go even further out on a limb and say at some point they lose two games in a row.

At 14-3, they are the NFC’s No. 1 seed

This is predicting a loss in Week 18, at which point the Eagles will have the No. 1 seed secured. The two losses come from within the four-game stretch beginning in Week 12: Green Bay, Tennessee, at New York Giants, at Chicago. A win in Dallas on Christmas Eve all but sews up the division.

Nick Sirianni is firmly in the Coach of the Year conversation as his team enters Week 10 with an undefeated record. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

Jalen Hurts finishes second in the MVP race; Nick Sirianni wins Coach of the Year 

Whichever quarterback of the AFC’s top seed (Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson) will receive the top award, while the Eagles’ record will be undeniable as Sirianni takes home his hardware. An Eagles player has never won the MVP award in the Super Bowl era. Two Super Bowl-era Eagles head coaches have won the Associated Press Coach of the Year award: Andy Reid in 2002 and Ray Rhodes in 1995.

The Eagles make the Super Bowl 

Buoyed by the bye and two weeks of home-field advantage, Hurts and the Eagles complete their season-long dominance of the conference and return to the scene of their Week 5 victory over the Arizona Cardinals. As for who they’ll play and the result of that game, well, that’ll cost extra.

(Top photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)