It’s safe to say that the 2015 Philadelphia Eagles’ season really hasn’t gone as anyone has expected. After all, preseason expectations for the team reached the point where national media members were predicting the Eagles to win the franchise’s first Super Bowl. And then the Eagles went out and fell flat on their face in the first month of the season.
Although the Eagles have rebounded, winning three of their last four games, their 4-4 record at midseason is still a far cry from even a pessimistic fan’s preseason expectations. But with the rest of the NFC East faltering, the Eagles find themselves just a half-game behind Eli Manning and the New York Giants for the division lead.
And, of course, the Eagles are flying high right now, fresh off an overtime victory against the hated Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football. The upcoming schedule, with games against Miami, Tampa Bay and Detroit, give the Eagles a very good chance of taking the lead in the division.
As we sit at the halfway point of the season, it’s time to look back on the first two months of the year, with awards below for the best and the worst players, games and performances.
Offensive Player: Good luck picking the best offensive player for the Eagles this season. Seriously, good luck. It’s basically a process of elimination, starting at quarterback and going through each position. The only candidates for the award are Ryan Mathews and Lane Johnson. I’ll go with Lane Johnson, who has continued to progress as a tackle during his third season in the National Football League. The left tackle of the future, Johnson made his debut at the position against Dallas and contained fearsome pass-rusher Greg Hardy for the majority of the game. While Mathews has been spectacular, averaging 6.1 yards per carry, he’s also a situational player who has seen the field for fewer than half the snaps.
Defensive Player: Who would have thought it would be the Eagles’ defense, not their offense, that would be the most impressive unit through the first half of the season? With a defense ranked in the top-third in scoring, there are three players whose performance really stands out from the first eight games: defensive end Fletcher Cox, linebacker Jordan Hicks and safety Malcolm Jenkins. I went with Cox because of his ability to fight off double teams and power one of the league’s better front sevens. Cox is on pace for double-digit sacks and he’s shown that he can be a disruptive force against the run. He’s well on his way to earning his first Pro Bowl selection.
Rookie: I wanted to list both an offensive and a defensive rookie, but there’s exactly one offensive rookie on the Eagles: wide receiver Nelson Agholor, who has been practically invisible through eight games. But on the defensive side of the ball, third-round linebacker Jordan Hicks has been one of the most impressive rookies in franchise history. I’m not sure that’s an exaggeration. Hicks has made at least one huge play in all seven games he’s played. He leads the team with 42 solo tackles. He’s recorded three fumble recoveries, two interceptions and a forced fumble. His sack fumble of Tony Romo in Week 2 singlehandedly changed the dynamics of the entire NFC East race, and his fourth quarter interception touchdown off Matt Cassel last Sunday night stands as one of the biggest individual plays of the season. His season-ending torn pectoral is a devastating blow to a defense that was finally being recognized as one of the better units in the league.
Offensive Surprise: Whether it’s good or bad, if you had to go with the one Eagles player whose performance has been the most surprising this season, you’d have to pick one of a number of underachieving players. You could go with quarterback Sam Bradford, who has looked nothing like the accurate pocket-passer we saw in preseason. You could pick any one of the receivers, from Jordan Matthews to Nelson Agholor to Josh Huff, or another pass-catcher in Zach Ertz. You could go with tackle Jason Peters, who has struggled with injuries all season. But the biggest surprise has to be center Jason Kelce. A sixth-round pick in 2011, Kelce has overcome two major injuries during his first four seasons to establish himself as one of the top centers in the league. He was rated as the league’s best center by Pro Football Focus in 2013 and earned his first Pro Bowl berth in 2014. But in 2015, Kelce has been a complete disaster. He’s committed seven penalties, had at least two bad snaps and even forgot the play count on one occasion. Whether Kelce is playing through an unknown injury or struggling without veteran guards Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans next to him on the line, the 2015 season is quickly becoming one to forget for the Eagles’ center.
Defensive Surprise: I’m not going to repeat awards, although if I did, this one would clearly go to Jordan Hicks. After all, nobody expected Hicks to even play as a rookie. Instead, he established himself as one of the three best players on the team in the first half of this season. But other than Hicks, there’s one other player on the defensive side of the ball who has been a major surprise with his play so far this season. That would be safety Walter Thurmond. Signed on a one-year deal following an injury-plagued season with the Giants, Thurmond was expected to compete for a spot as the nickel corner, or perhaps as the other starting cornerback opposite Byron Maxwell. Instead, the Eagles’ coaching staff rolled the dice, converting Thurmond to a position he had never played before: safety. He has since thrived, collecting 25 tackles, fifth on the team, plus three big interceptions. At 28 years old, Thurmond is a prime candidate to earn a multi-year deal this offseason. He and Malcolm Jenkins should be the Eagles’ safeties for the next several seasons.
Best Coach: Two coaches really stand out for their unit’s performance so far this season, and no, Chip Kelly is not one of them. First, there’s offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland. His unit, like the rest of the team, started off slowly, but has really progressed over the last few weeks. The Eagles have allowed Sam Bradford to be sacked just 14 times, and they’ve rushed for more than 150 yards in each of the last four games. But the most impressive coach has to be defensive backs coach Cory Undlin, who has taken one of the league’s worst units in 2014 and turned it into an above-average group in 2015. At cornerback, Byron Maxwell is finally playing like a $63 million cornerback, allowing the league’s fifth-best passer rating over the last four games. Nolan Carroll has an interception touchdown and 36 tackles as an unexpected surprise as the number two cornerback. And Malcolm Jenkins and Walter Thurmond have provided the Eagles with their best duo of safeties since Brian Dawkins and Quintin Mikell in 2008.
Best Game: The Eagles have four victories this season. After three of them, there was a general feeling of pessimism in the air, despite the win. Against the Jets, the Eagles almost blew a 24-point halftime lead. Against the Saints and Giants, the Eagles won in spite of Sam Bradford’s erratic play. So the default best game of the season clearly has to be the overtime win against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football. With their season on the line, the Eagles won in Arlington Stadium for the fifth time in the last six games, thanks to clutch performances from Sam Bradford, DeMarco Murray, Jordan Matthews, Jordan Hicks and Caleb Sturgis.
Best Moment: There’s only one possible canddiate for the Eagles’ best moment this season. It came in the fifth quarter of the Eagles-Cowboys game on Sunday Night Football, when Jordan Matthews caught a 41-yard touchdown pass from Sam Bradford and scooted into the end zone for a dramatic walkoff touchdown. Matthews’ touchdown helped redeem a drop-filled seven-game stretch that raised serious doubts about his abilities to carry the Eagles’ receivers corps. Bradford finally turned in a complete performance, completing 25 of 36 passes for almost 300 yards and most importantly, no turnovers. The Eagles improved to 4-4, just a half-game behind the Giants, while the Cowboys suffered their sixth consecutive defeat, something they hadn’t done since 1989.
