Previewing Philadelphia’s wild card playoff matchup.
In a rematch of a Week 1 battle that took place in Brazil, the Philadelphia Eagles are hosting the Green Bay Packers for a playoff game at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.
In order to preview this Wild Card matchup, I reached out to our enemies over at Acme Packing Company. The jubilant Justis Mosqueda kindly took the time to answer my questions about this upcoming battle. Let’s take a look at the answers.
[For my answers about the Eagles, stay tuned to APC.]
1 – After throwing at least one interception in each of his first eight games, Jordan Love hasn’t turned the ball over his last seven games. What’s all gone into that turnaround?
Toyotathon, baby. In all seriousness, the fact that the Packers don’t give their starters many reps in the preseason in general (Matt LaFleur is a big believer in load management and injury avoidance) makes me believe that team is always going to be better in the second half of the season than they are out of the gate. We’ve just seen it too many times to avoid admitting that. Love is still plenty aggressive with the football, but some of those interceptable balls just haven’t come down for the defense, too.
2 – To what extent is the Christian Watson injury a significant concern? And how do you expect the Packers to go about replacing him?
It’s a pretty big deal. Without Watson, the Packers’ offense didn’t really have an answer for man coverage against the Vikings. Usually, the Vikings play zone defense behind their blitzes and the Packers were caught a bit off guard by their gameplan, leading to the hole Green Bay needed to dig themselves out of early. Watson had three touchdowns against the Cowboys a couple of years ago in the playoffs when they tried to man up these receivers. Bo Melton is the only other “speed” receiver on the roster, but it’s getting hard to play him and Jayden Reed on the field at the same time because neither are impactful as run blockers on the run-first team. Maybe the answer is to let Dontayvion Wicks beat man coverage with his route running, but losing Watson certainly hurt the team.
3 – What’s one thing that makes you feel really good about the Packers’ chances in this matchup?
Can I say Jalen Hurts? Will I get attacked if I say Jalen Hurts? The Packers have done a pretty good job of playing receivers on the perimeter this year. Where they get gutted is the middle of the field behind the linebacker level. Green Bay has also done a really good job of not letting mobile quarterbacks get to the edge. They’ll push the pocket and play contain against scramblers rather than try to bend the edge and risk flushing a quarterback out, particularly to the right side. Unless Hurts decides to break his tendencies and starts to throw over the middle, where they’re relatively weak as a defense, I like the matchup.
4 – What’s one thing that really worries you about the Packers heading into this game?
We have so many injuries. Last week, the Packers were down two safeties, Jaire Alexander at cornerback and Quay Walker at middle linebacker. Eric Wilson just cannot run well enough at middle linebacker to stop some of these passes when the Packers call Tampa 2, one of their favorite coverages. The Vikings absolutely cooked Wilson over the middle of the field in their last matchup, but Chicago wasn’t able to ever really get into a groove in the passing game. On top of that, Green Bay’s pass rush hasn’t really been impactful this year unless they send a blitzer from depth. Their defensive ends have improved a lot in the run game and have done well containing mobile quarterbacks, but their pressure rate has gone down significantly.
5 – Who wins this game and why? With the Eagles currently listed as 4.5-point home favorites, what’s your score prediction?
It’ll be a good game. If I’m taking a side on 4.5, it’ll be the Packers, but I think this is pretty close to 50/50 from a pick’em perspective. Give me 24-21 Packers for the comment section. Cocky?
