{"id":1387,"date":"2011-01-07T12:12:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T16:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2011-01-07T12:14:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T16:14:42","slug":"the-birds-will-pull-it-out-vs-packers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1387","title":{"rendered":"The Birds Will Pull It Out Vs. Packers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Birds will stay one step ahead on Sunday<\/p><\/div>\n

I was with my BSB co-author last Saturday and, shockingly, we had some discussion about the upcoming NFL playoffs.\u00a0 The Eagles’ opponent wasn’t known yet, but I told Bry, “I think the Packers will beat us.”\u00a0 For weeks now, the one matchup I did not want for the Eagles in the 1st Round of the playoffs was the\u00a0Green Bay Packers.\u00a0 Sure enough, that is the team coming to Philly this weekend for what promises to be a\u00a0great game for any fan of the sport.<\/p>\n

Anyone that pays attention to the Eagles and the NFL and the coverage this week of the Wild Card Round (and if you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you fall into that category) knows that the Packers are a bad matchup.\u00a0 The Eagles are starting two very inexperienced defensive backs, and the Packers feature one of the game’s premier quarterbacks and a deep, talented corps of receivers.\u00a0 The Eagles offensive line has struggled in pass protection all season, and the Packer defense excels in the pass rush,\u00a0with\u00a0one of the all-time great, quarterback-killing defensive coordinators (Dom Capers) calling the shots.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Eagles, of course,\u00a0come limping into the playoffs, with the Giants and Vikings seemingly laying out the blue-print for containing the\u00a0Eagle offense.\u00a0\u00a0The home-field advantage is huge and I still believe the Eagles are a really good team, but all week I’ve seen this game as a narrow Green Bay win.\u00a0 Until this morning.<\/p>\n

You may say I’m just looking for reasons to believe in an Eagles\u00a0win, and you’d most likely be right, but an article I read this morning<\/a> by Marcus Hayes\u00a0was enough to shift my thinking\u00a0just enough that I now see the Birds pulling out a close one on Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0As the article shows, I’ve been far from alone in my feelings about the game.\u00a0 The vast majority of experts around the country, and even in Philly, have been picking the Packers to win this game, and that fact has not been lost on the Eagles players.\u00a0 The Eagles\u00a0are division champions, playing on their home-field against the\u00a0Wild Card, 6th-seed Packers, yet all they’ve heard all week is that they’re going to get beat.\u00a0 And, apparently, they are NOT happy about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A team that has spent most of the season hearing people singing the praises of Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin, and others, has spent the last\u00a0two weeks hearing about how they’re not good enough.\u00a0\u00a0I think that’s given them the classic\u00a0“nobody believes in us” chip on their shoulder that will make the difference on Sunday.\u00a0 It’s pushing them to prepare a little bit more this week, to work just a little bit harder, and to come out on Sunday taking things up in intensity one notch more than they otherwise would have.\u00a0 The defense, in particular, feels like they have a ton to prove, and they will make just enough plays to bring home the win.\u00a0\u00a0Eagles take it, 21-20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was with my BSB co-author last Saturday and, shockingly, we had some discussion about the upcoming NFL playoffs.\u00a0 The Eagles’ opponent wasn’t known yet, but I told Bry, “I think the Packers will beat us.”\u00a0 For weeks now, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,738,176],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-eagles","tag-michael-vick","tag-packers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}