I perceive why the NFL higher-ups need the Eagles and Packers to play their first recreation of the 2024 season in Brazil. I actually do.
The NFL needs to be the NBA. They wish to be a worldwide league. They wish to have Brazilian superstars and French superstars and German superstars and so forth. They wish to rake within the billions of {dollars} in international money the NBA does, and using the Eagles and Packers, two marquee franchises and Tremendous Bowl contenders to advertise the game in a rustic like Brazil is smart from a long-range monetary standpoint.
Nevertheless it stinks.
Beginning off the season on a Friday evening in another country is simply concerning the final approach you’d desire a staff just like the Eagles to kick issues off in Week 1. This can be a staff whose schedule final yr was in every single place, and with a lot uncertainty concerning the roster and the teaching employees, with so many unanswered questions and coming off a historic collapse the season earlier than, you’d like to start out the 2024 season with an excellent ‘ol customary 1pm Sunday kickoff.
So whereas I’m wanting ahead to seeing Jalen Hurts, Jalen Carter and the remainder of the 2024 Eagles get the season began on Friday evening, I’m not wanting ahead to seeing them do it in Brazil, and I’m definitely not wanting ahead to seeing the way it impacts them within the weeks after making this ridiculous trans-continental journey to a metropolis with a sky-high crime charge.
That being mentioned, listed below are 5 issues I’m most wanting ahead to this season with kickoff just some hours away!
Saquon Barkley’s Affect on the Offense
The Eagles haven’t had a real No. 1 operating again since Shady McCoy, who led the Eagles in dashing from 2009-14. During the last decade there was a group of RB-by-committee members — DeMarco Murray, Ryan Mathews, Jay Ajayi, LeGarrett Blount, Josh Adams (a team-leading 511 dashing yards in 2018!!!), Miles Sanders, D’Andre Swift, Kenny Gainwell to call just a few — and I’m prepared to offer my coronary heart to 1 participant as soon as once more.
Saquon Barkley goes to be “the man” within the new Eagles offense. Head coach Nick Sirianni mentioned this week the staff was prepared to totally unleash the previous Giants star and Professional Bowler, saying “He can go for it right here” after watching a Barkley run in apply Monday that made him do a double take.
I’m additionally fascinated to see if the Eagles can lastly make the most of a operating again out of the backfield as a pass-catcher, and the way a lot that can assist Jalen Hurts. I’m excited to see what Barkley can do operating behind an actual quarterback in an actual offense with actual weapons that groups need to deal with aside from him. In New York, all eyes have been on him. In Philadelphia, he could also be possibility No. 3 or 4 at occasions.
Some consider the offense will run by way of Barkley, however whether or not that’s true or not, I’m most excited a few probably monstrous season from him.
Jalen Carter Dominating the NFL
With Rams star Aaron Donald now retired, Jalen Carter has an opportunity to interchange him as the most effective pass-rushing defensive deal with within the NFL.
That’s not hyperbole. He has the potential to be an All-Professional defensive deal with, and all accounts from coaching camp are that he’s in higher form than a yr in the past and been completely dominant. Carter performed nicely at time final season, however wore down in the course of the 17-game, 18-week marathon, hardly a shock growth for a participant who didn’t play each snap in faculty in a extremely rotational protection at Georgia.
The departure of Fletcher Cox from the line of defense rotation leaves a fairly large gap. Even in his last season, Cox was wonderful, persistently performing each week whereas tallying 5 sacks. Carter would look like the inheritor obvious, and I’m excited to look at him take the following step ahead in 2024.
Kellen Moore’s Offensive Design
By the top of final yr, it turned clear the Eagles’ offensive schemes wanted greater than only a makeover. They wanted a renovation. And what do you do when you’ll want to renovate one thing? You rent somebody to come back on board and strip issues all the way down to the studs and rebuild.
Enter former Cowboys and Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. His job is to freshen issues up and insert new concepts into Nick Sirianni’s current scheme. Virtually definitely we’ll see extra pre-snap movement after final yr when Sirianni used it simply 10.9% of the time, far and away the bottom proportion within the league.
However there will probably be extra to it than simply pre-snap movement. Maybe we’ll see an offense that is ready to not solely be destroyed by blitzing, however truly exploit it. Maybe we’ll see extra designed passing to their new star operating again. Maybe we’ll see extra of A.J. Brown or Devonta Smith within the slot. Maybe we’ll see totally different designed runs for Hurts, new blocking schemes, and/or the utilization of Dallas Goedert extra. The excellent news is Moore has so many weapons with diversified ability units, the probabilities are actually countless.
He additionally has a quarterback that seems able to match his MVP-caliber 2022 season. Jalen Hurts seems and appears like a person on a mission, able to put a distracted and disappointing ‘23 season behind him. If Hurts runs the ball with the identical sort of effectiveness we noticed two years in the past, I simply don’t understand how anybody stops this offense, even with out future Corridor of Famer Jason Kelce on the heart of the offensive line.
A.J. Brown & DeVonta Smith
Do you actually need greater than 30-40 phrases from me to speak about why I’m excited to see the most effective extensive receiver duo the franchise has ever seen?
I didn’t suppose so.
Younger Defenders
Right here is my degree of pleasure order for every of the younger defenders Vic Fangio will deploy this season.
Jalen Carter
Quinyon Mitchell
Bryce Huff
Nakobe Dean
Jordan Davis
Nolan Smith
Cooper DeJean
Jeremiah Trotter Jr.
Kelee Ringo
Jalyx Hunt
Mitchell goes to be on the sector A LOT, each on the surface and within the slot. In contrast to a lot of the guys on this listing, Huff isn’t an Eagles draft choose, however he’s a younger, ascending participant (we hope) who’s incomes massive free agent {dollars} and whose growth as an each down edge participant is significant to serving to substitute the departed Haason Reddick. Dean’s means to remain wholesome and enhance in all information within the recreation might be the important thing to this protection truly working this yr.
Expectations for Davis have been excessive getting into his first two seasons, however he hasn’t lived as much as them but. Nolan Smith was largely invisible this summer time, and so they want him to step up, too. The remainder of the blokes will probably be position gamers this yr, however vital ones, and all have excessive upsides.
This is likely one of the youngest defenses we’ve seen in a very long time, and it has the texture of a increase or bust unit. If it’s increase, this might be an extremely enjoyable protection to look at, and it’s one of many issues I’m most enthusiastic about in 2024.
