Predicting wins and losses on the Eagles’ 2022 schedule

Spoiler alert: This article is 100% correct.

The 2022 NFL schedule is officially here and that means it’s time for a very serious and scientific exercise: predicting the Philadelphia Eagles’ final record by determining wins and losses on a game-by-game basis!

Last year around this time, I had the Eagles finishing with an 8-9 record. I was a little too low on them since they finished 9-8!

Let’s take a look at how things might shake out this year. (Also check out even more schedule analysis in the latest BGN Radio podcast!)

Week 1 – at Detroit Lions (Sept. 11, 1:00 PM, FOX)

The Eagles absolutely kicked the crap out of the Lions last year. That game finished with a rather iconic score of 44 to 6. One might be remiss to think things will go so easily for the Birds this time around. The Lions are going to be healthier and better than they were at that point. That blowout loss was not a typical result for Detroit last year despite them being a bad team. Dan Campbell is going to have his team playing hard in order to seek revenge. The Lions pull off the upset with Jameson Williams and D.J. Chark validating concerns about Philly’s secondary.

LOSS: 0-1

Week 2 – Minnesota Vikings (Sept. 19, 8:30 PM, ABC) Monday Night Football

Kirk Cousins kinda owns the Eagles with a career 6-3 record and a 104.9 passer against Philly. But he’s not exactly the best primetime quarterback, going 10-18 in such games. The Eagles aren’t starting their season 0-2. They manage to survive Justin Jefferson having a big game to advance to 1-1. (If you want to have the Eagles beating the Lions and losing to the Vikings, same difference.)

WIN: 1-1

Week 3 – at Washington Commanders (Sept. 25, 1:00 PM, FOX)

First of all, the NFL screwed up by having Carson Wentz’s first game against the Eagles not taking place in Philly. But, hey, there should still be a large contingent of Eagles fans present at FedEx Field. Outside of the Wentz angle, Washington is a boring team. They notably added Jahan Dotson and they’re getting Chase Young back. But the Commanders got worse in the trenches with losses such as Brandon Scherff, Tim Settle, and Matt Ioannidis. The Eagles take this game to start out 1-0 in the division.

WIN: 2-1

Week 4 – Jacksonville Jaguars (Oct. 2, 1:00 PM, CBS)

Welcome back to Philly, Doug Pederson! The Eagles better do right by Dougie P and give their only Super Bowl-winning head coach some proper recognition prior to the game. After the coin is flipped, though, Doug is the enemy. And he’s probably going to struggle to lead an unproven and untalented Jags team to victory. Trevor Lawrence has the potential to be pretty good but we haven’t seen anything too special from him just yet.

WIN: 3-1

Week 5 – at Arizona Cardinals (Oct. 9, 4:25 PM, FOX)

The Cardinals will notably be without DeAndre Hopkins in this matchup since he was hit with a six-game suspension. That’s a big break for the Eagles’ secondary. The Cards have had bad offseason vibes with Kyler Murray seemingly unhappy about not getting a long-term contract. It’s also hard to ignore how Murray and Kliff Kingsbury have collapsed late in the last two seasons. Unfortunately for the Eagles, this game is earlier in the year. And, for all his faults, Murray does possess raw talent that can make him pesky to defend. The desert is also a tough place to play sometimes. I’m going to say the Eagles lose this one even though I think there’s potential for Arizona’s season to quickly go south. Maybe I’m not trusting the vibes enough.

LOSS: 3-2

Week 6 – Dallas Cowboys (Oct. 16, 8:20 PM, NBC) Sunday Night Football*

Jalen Hurts is 0-2 against the Cowboys. Both losses came in blowout fashion. Just because that happened in the past doesn’t necessarily guarantee it’ll happen again. But it doesn’t do anything to earn him the benefit of the doubt. Until he actually stops struggling the Eagles’ biggest rival, I’m not going to merely assume it’ll happen.

LOSS: 3-3

Week 7 – BYE

And on the seventh week, the Eagles rested.

Week 8 – Pittsburgh Steelers (Oct. 30, 1:00 PM, CBS)

The Stillers are 0-9 in Philadelphia since 1966. The Eagles own them in Philly. Just a testament to Wawa being superior to Sheetz. It’s not hard to imagine Pittsburgh’s losing streak extending to 0-10 considering their quarterback options are Mitchell Trubisky and Kenny Pickett. The latter is probably going to get the start since it’s a prime opportunity for the “Kenny Pickett grew up as an Eagles fan!” headlines. But despite the fact Mike Tomlin always has him team playing hard, the Eagles edge out their Keystone State brethren.

WIN: 4-3

Week 9 – at Houston Texans (Nov. 3, 8:15, Prime Video) Thursday Night Football

The Texans have one of the worst rosters in the NFL. People like to say Davis Mills showed some positive signs last year, especially relative to other rookie quarterbacks. And while there’s some truth to that, he’s not scaring anybody. Jonathan Gannon’s defense has a track record of taking care of the lesser quarterbacks and he falls into that category. Also, I’m very much giving the edge to Nick Sirianni over Lovie Smith. I mean, how is Lovie Smith an NFL head coach in the year 2022. The Texans didn’t even want him to be their coach (so maybe he’s actually the right decision?) but they couldn’t hire preferred choice Josh McCown due to optics in the aftermath of the Brian Flores allegations.

WIN: 5-3

Week 10 – Washington Commanders (Nov. 14, 8:15 PM, ESPN) Monday Night Football

We all know the Eagles are losing one game to Carson Wentz this year, right? One of two things are going to happen. Either 1) he’s going to go off against his former team or 2) he’s going to have an aggressively mediocre or even bad game where Washington wins in spite of him and people still claim that he got ‘revenge’ on the Eagles anyway. (Not totally unlike what happened with Donovan McNabb ‘beating’ the Birds in his return to Philly despite only completing eight passes.) The Eagles are splitting with the Commanders.

LOSS: 5-4

Week 11 – at Indianapolis Colts (Nov. 20, 1:00 PM, CBS)

The Eagles had their way with Matt Ryan in Week 1 last year. They probably won’t be able to dominate him as much as they did back then since his supporting cast in Indy is better than it was in Atlanta. But are the Colts really that intimidating? They have some nice players. Jonathan Taylor is probably going to give the Birds some fits. But it’s a toss-up game to me. I could see the Eagles advancing to 2-0 against Frank Reich.

WIN: 6-4

Week 12 – Green Bay Packers (Nov. 27, 8:20 PM, NBC) Sunday Night Football*

The toughest game on the Eagles’ schedule. After watching Gannon’s defense get absolutely destroyed by very good quarterbacks last year, it’s hard to imagine he’s going to have answers for Aaron Rodgers. The reigning back-to-back MVP shouldn’t struggle to take advantage of Philly’s secondary.

LOSS: 6-5

Week 13 – Tennessee Titans (Dec. 4, 1:00 PM, CBS)

Methinks the Eagles split the previous game and this one. If you have the order flipped, fine. I don’t see a lot of juice to this matchup. There’s the obvious angle of the A.J. Brown revenge game. But it’s not like Eagles fans seriously hate Titans fans. I guess there’s some low key intrigue with Jim Schwartz returning to Philly as a member of the Titans coaching staff. The Titans are obviously worse without Brown and there are questions about Derrick Henry holding up as the foundation of their offense.

WIN: 7-5

Week 14 – at New York Giants (Dec. 11, 1:00 PM, FOX)

You know how I picked the Cowboys to beat the Eagles because Hurts hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt? Well, similar principal here with the Giants not earning the benefit of the doubt over the Eagles. Even though the G-Men did beat Hurts last year. But that game was more about the Eagles being awful and beating themselves than New York doing anything great. The Giants’ roster is just very bad.

WIN: 8-5

Week 15 – at Chicago Bears (Dec. 18, 1:00 PM, FOX)

Da Bears are straight trash. Justin Fields is incredibly overrated; he was very bad as a rookie. In fairness to Fields, he hasn’t been surrounded with a strong supporting cast. Chicago’s top three receivers are … Darnell Mooney, Equanimeous St. Brown, and Byron Pringle. Yikes! The Bears’ offensive line is also bad. This team could be in the mix for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

WIN: 9-5

Week 16 – at Dallas Cowboys (Dec. 24, 4:25 PM, FOX) Saturday

As if the Eagles’ struggles against the Cowboys weren’t concerning enough, the Birds have multiple disadvantages working against them in this game. The first is that they have to travel on less than usual rest since it’s a Saturday game. The second is that they’re playing their third straight road game in three weeks. Teams in that scenario historically do not fare well. The Eagles get swept by Dallas.

LOSS: 9-6

Week 17 – New Orleans Saints (Jan. 1, 1:00 PM, FOX)

Hurts may struggle against the Cowboys but he excels against the Saints. Those are the rules. New Orleans is arguably the most delusional team in the NFL. For some reason, they think they’re in great shape despite losing Sean Payton and having Jameis Winston under center. The idea that Winston turned the corner last year and is good now is silly. There’s too much evidence of him being a turnover machine to think those issues are forever solved.

WIN: 10-6

Week 18 – New York Giants (Jan. 7 or 8, TBD, TBD)

Always tough to predict the season finale when you don’t know if the game is going to be meaningful or not. The Eagles oddly had the benefit of resting their starters as the No. 7 seed in the NFC playoff picture last year. We’ll guess that they’ll need Week 18 this time around and they shouldn’t struggle

WIN: 11-6

PLAYOFFS?!

Considering there hasn’t been a repeat NFC East winner in, oh, nearly 20 years … one shouldn’t merely assume the Cowboys are winning the division. Of course, I say that after having the Birds getting swept by Dallas. But the path is there with the Cowboys getting worse this offseason and seemingly being poised for some kind of step back.

Even if they win the division, I’ll have my doubts about the Eagles winning a playoff game unless they prove they can hang with the big boys in the regular season.

Final record: 11-6

The Eagles have one of the easiest schedules in the league this based on 2022 projected win totals. If there’s anything we learned from last year, it’s that they’re pretty good at taking care of business when it comes to the bad/mediocre teams. But they really struggled against the legitimately good ones.

The sense here is we’ll see some similar results in 2022. The Eagles certainly have the potential to be better with some important offseason additions such as A.J. Brown, Haason Reddick, and Jordan Davis. It’s also possible Jalen Hurts takes a significant step forward.

But it’s also pretty possible that Hurts continues to not be very good at throwing the football at a high level. And Philly’s obvious holes in the secondary might prove to be as troublesome as they currently appear to be on paper.

The Eagles are hardly in “Super Bowl or bust” mode but the team should absolutely be held to higher expectations in 2022. If they make the playoffs only to get beat decisively in the first round again, well, that’s just not a successful season.

Hurts is especially facing a lot of pressure as he tries to convince the Birds that he’s worthy of a long-term contract extension. He needs to prove he can go up against the better quarterbacks in the league and lead the Eagles to victory.

At the risk of jinxing it, it’s hard to imagine the Eagles having a disaster season. Even if their starting quarterback gets injured, they still have a decent chance to hit the over on their projected win total of 8.5 games.

While much is to be determined, one thing is for sure: the 2022 Eagles should be interesting to watch. Can’t wait for September to be here.