NFL Schedule Preview: Philadelphia Eagles

It’s 25 days until the new NFL season begins but for a football mad guy like me that’s just too long so I’ve taken it upon myself to go over each NFL schedule and try and predict for all of you what may happen once the season rolls around.

As we count down the final NFL schedules with the NFC East we move on to the Philadelphia Eagles who went 8-8  in 2011. Here’s how I think their season will go:

• Week 1 at Cleveland Browns – Win
• Week 2 vs Baltimore Ravens – Win
• Week 3 at Arizona Cardinals – Win
• Week 4 vs New York Giants – Win
• Week 5 at Pittsburgh Steelers – Win
• Week 6 vs Detroit Lions – Loss
• Week 7 BYE
• Week 8 vs Atlanta Falcons – Win
• Week 9 at New Orleans Saints – Loss
• Week 10 vs Dallas Cowboys – Win
• Week 11 at Washington Redskins – Win
• Week 12 vs Carolina Panthers – Win
• Week 13 at Dallas Cowboys – Win
• Week 14 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Win
• Week 15 vs Cincinnati Bengals – Win
• Week 16 vs Washington Redskins – Win
• Week 17 at New York Giants – Win

Overall Record for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2012: 14-2

After the disappointment of 2011 when this group of stars failed to play as a superstar team, there’s lower expectations on the Eagles from many quarters. To be honest though there’s no reason why after having knitted together last season and then added a terrific defensive leader in DeMeco Ryans that this team can’t live up to what was expected of them in 2012.

This schedule looks pretty tough at face value but if you look deeper you’ll notice that there are some rather obvious bright spots. The best example of this is how Philadelphia opens their season – starting with the Browns, Ravens and Cardinals is a recipe for momentum. The really crucial games this season are either side of the bye week with the Steelers and Lions before and the Falcons and Saints after. Come out of this intact with a 5-3 record or better and Philadelphia will be in good shape to make the playoffs and win the division.

Tomorrow we have our final two schedules in a double-header finale with the Dallas Cowboys followed by the Washington Redskins. That’s not all though. Next week we’re going to take all the predictions of the past couple of months and use them to put together playoff predictions and a strength of schedule which will give us a 2013 NFL Draft Order. Finally, NFL Spin Zone Senior Editor Josh Sanchez will chime in using our manufactured draft order to give us his first mock draft looking ahead to 2013.