In past seasons, Philadelphia Eagles fans generally rooted for their own team, and kept an eye on the rest of the NFC East. Now that they might be Super Bowl contenders — especially in a bad NFC — it's probably worth paying attention to rest of the conference as well. There are also peripheral rooting interests for Birds fans this season, as they own an extra first-round draft pick in 2023.
And so, each week we'll lay out a rooting guide for non-Eagles games on the NFL schedule, and yes, I'm aware that most of the below is obvious. Ideal winners bolded.
NFC East
• Ravens at Giants (1:00 p.m.): Last week, we said that it would be a good thing if the Giants beat the Packers, on the premise that the Giants will eventually start losing games because they don't have a good roster, and the Packers are a bigger threat to the Eagles' chances of landing the highest playoff seed possible. Now that the Giants are 4-1, it's time to start rooting for them to lose games.
First-round draft pick watch
• Bengals at Saints (1:00 p.m.): If the season ended a week ago, the Saints would have finished 1-3, and their first-round pick, owned by the Eagles, would have been fourth overall. The Eagles would have also had the 1 seed. Unfortunately for the Eagles, however, the season didn't end last week. The Saints won Week 5, dropping them to ninth overall.
The Bengals are 1.5-point favorites in this matchup.
Other NFC contenders
A look at fivethirtyeight.com's updated 2022 predictions, sorted by teams' percentage chance of earning a first-round bye:
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As you can see, the Eagles are the overwhelming favorites to earn the No. 1 seed in the NFC at the moment, at 49 (!) percent. The Cowboys are behind them at 18 percent, followed by the Buccaneers and Vikings, each at 9 percent, the 49ers at 7 percent, and the Packers at 4 percent.
So, you know, it's best if all of those teams lose:
- Jets at Packers (1:00 p.m.)
- 49ers at Falcons (1:00 p.m.)
- Vikings at Dolphins (1:00 p.m.)
Other NFC vs. NFC games
None of these teams below look like Super Bowl contenders so far this year, but certainly the Rams are more threatening than the Panthers, and I guess (?) the Cardinals are more of a threat than the Seahawks.
- Panthers at Rams (4:05 p.m.)
- Cardinals at Seahawks (4:05 p.m.)
For future reference
Teams that the Eagles play later this year in italics:
- Jaguars at Colts (1:00 p.m.): The Eagles beat the Jaguars already, of course. They'll face what looks like a bad Colts team in Indianapolis Week 11.
Irrelevant to the Eagles
- Patri*ts at Browns (1:00 p.m.)
- Bills at Chiefs (4:25 p.m.)
- Broncos at Chargers (MNF)
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