The Eagles Pessimism Playbook
Walkthrough douses the Skip Bayless and Wale Eagles endorsements with ice water. Plus: QB takes from the final preseason weekend and Pro Football Hall of Fame bureaucracy run amok.
Want to give an Eagles fan an ulcer? Make the Eagles favorites entering the season. No, worse: make them media darlings.
Last week’s Jahan Dotson acquisition was a tipping point for Eagles enthusiasm in several quadrants of the Internet. Noted Cowboys superfan/megatroll Skip Bayless, who sounds fed up with Jerrahnomics, crossed the aisle and endorsed the Eagles after they added Doston.
“I’ve hated the Eagles since I was 10 years old,” Bayless brayed from his bully pulpit.“ But I cannot tell a lie: They just won the Super Bowl, because Howie Roseman is Executive of the Year … while Jerry Jones is executive of the rear.”
Bayless’ CowboysFanz4Howie campaign may simply be a matter of political expediency, but rapper/Commanders fan Wale leveled much more serious claims against the Eagles. “The Eagles need to get hit [with] a RICO,” he posted. “They doin somethin illegal over there.”
A sportstalk provocateur switching loyalties to get attention is just a Tuesday. A hip-hop superstar calling the feds? That’s another matter.
The Dotson trade – the Eagles acquired the former first-round pick and two-year Commanders starter for a 2025 third-round pick and some change – comes at the end of an offseason full of aggressive acquisitions and changes. Dotson also arrives at an Eagles headquarters which sounds like Camp Harmony just nine months after someone released Joker toxin in the heating vents.
News emanating from the NovaCare complex has been uncharacteristically rosy all offseason long. According to local personality Eliot Shorr-Parks, Jalen Hurts went weeks without throwing a practice-field interception. Shorr-Parks is an excitable fellow – he can come across as a Starter Bayless at times – but he kept careful track of every throw, and his observations are backed up by the beat-writer consensus. By all accounts, Hurts (who did not play in the preseason) has looked crisp and comfortable in Kellen Moore’s offense. Hurts’ success does not sound like an indictment of the Eagles secondary, either: reports about individual players of note, even James Bradberry, have been mostly positive.
Contrast the Eagles news with Cowboys/49ers news. In Dallas, the feud between Jerry Jones and his superstars remains at a low simmer. Cornerback DaRon Bland will miss 6-8 weeks with a foot injury, but Stephon Gilmore just signed with the Vikings, robbing the Cowboys of their most logical replacement. (Jerrah confirmed that he will not pursue a veteran cornerback, because he lost his checkbook and never figured out how to work an ATM.) We’ll cover the Trey Lance five-interception debacle later in today’s Walkthrough.
The 49ers, meanwhile, keep running Brock Purdy onto the field with the semi-starters to convince fans/experts/themselves that he’s not merely three toddlers in a trench coat, with mixed results. The Brandon Aiyuk saga is now a Thirty Years War, and a pair of key contributors on the defensive line (Leonard Floyd, Yetur Gross-Matos) got injured in Friday night’s dress rehearsal. Both the Cowboys and 49ers would love to be in we’re-just-adding-reinforcements mode right now.