Eagles facing real pressure in Week 1 as they take on Packers in Brazil 'home' game

The Packers ended the season red hot, while the Eagles fizzled in embarrassing fashion. Green Bay can knock off an NFC contender in Week 1 with a decisive win.

The Green Bay Packers couldn’t have finished the 2023 season in a more disparate place than the Philadelphia Eagles. Green Bay went toe-to-toe with the eventual NFC champs as an upstart 9-8 playoff success without any expectations coming into the season. They were the youngest team in the NFL in 2023 and will be again in 2024. Meanwhile, Philadelphia ended its season getting their butts kicked 32-9 to complete one of the most epic in-season collapses outside of the New York Mets in recent sports history: From 10-1 to 11-7 including the postseason. Week 1 is a referendum on the direction these two teams are headed.

Most Week 1s don’t matter much. Especially as the league goes to 17 games, with 18 likely on the horizon, one game means less than ever. Not so for the Eagles, and not just because of the media market with a fanbase not exactly famous for its magnanimity.

Philly finished 11-6 in the regular season but with just 9.4 estimated wins according to FTN Fantasy (formerly Football Outsiders). The Eagles got incredibly lucky early in the season with close-game outcomes with seven of their 10 wins to open the year coming in one-score fashion. Jalen Hurts felt the loss of Shane Steichen who left to coach the Indianapolis Colts; the Eagles had no answers for blitzes and the defense forgot how to tackle. In fact, things got so bad for the defense, Sirianni turned to *gulp* Matt Patricia of all people for help.

The Eagles finished 21st in weighted DVOA on the year, which adjusts for how the team was playing at the end of the season. That end-of-season run included a 42-19 demolition at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers, a 33-13 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, an embarrassing loss to Drew Lock and the Seattle Seahawks, plus a 35-31 loss to the Cardinals before Sirianni pulled the starters for a Week 18 loss to the Giants.