How will the Saints fare against an immensely talented Eagles team?
In Week 3 of the 2024 season, All-Pro quarterback Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles come down to New Orleans for an early season test for the Saints.
The Eagles are coming into this season just as strongly as they were last year around this time. Many of their additions this past offseason were replacements for players they lost but most of them actually came as upgrades. During the course of the offseason some of the major losses that the Eagles dealt with were, LB/DE Hassan Reddick, RB DeAndre Swift and S Kevin Byard. The team was able to revamp these positions with younger and more talented players such as LB/DE Bryce Huff, RB Saquon Barkley and S C.J. Gardner-Johnson. In addition to this, the team added even more talent through the draft in selecting CB Quinyon Mitchell and S Cooper DeJean in the first two rounds. As far as this Eagles roster goes, they are nothing to play with in the NFC.
An updated look at the Eagles offseason additions thus far:
RB Saquon Barkley
DE Bryce Huff
DB Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
LB Devin White
QB Kenny Pickett
WR DeVante Parker
LB Zack Baun
OL Matt HennessyNew OC Kellen Moore
New DC Vic Fangio— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 15, 2024
With that being said though, the Eagles struggled mightily at the end of last season leading to an early playoff exit after being handled by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card round. Starting with a Week 13 blowout loss to San Fran, the Eagles went on to lose five of their last six games to end the year. Much of this collapse fell on their all-world quarterback Jalen Hurts who in the last seven games threw only six touchdowns to five interceptions. Hurts received a ton of criticism late in the year along with the Eagles coaching staff which led to turnover on both sides of the ball. However, the expectation is that the team should bounce back and still remain one of the top teams in the NFC.
❌ Eagles Eliminated – Extremely Frustrating Collapse‼️
Eagles have lost the MOST games in the NFL since November 30th#Eagles lost 6 of 7 to end the season including to the Bucs in the playoffs
▶️ 10-1 Start
▶️ 1-6 Finish pic.twitter.com/ZTQVbJOB29— Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) January 16, 2024
Now when it comes to this early season tilt, the New Orleans Saints are going to have to find a way to keep Jalen Hurts in the pocket and limit Saquon Barkley in the run game, if they want to win this game. The Saints have all the talent in the backend to limit the Eagles passing game, but it will only play into their favor if they can stop the run, which has been a weakness of theirs. On the offensive side of the ball, the Saints are going to have to move the ball effectively in the run game to take some pressure off of Derek Carr. With three new starting offensive linemen in the fold this early in the season, it is more likely than not that there will be some struggles in protection early on. To alleviate this, they will likely have to get Alvin Kamara and co. going early to keep the Eagles on their heels.
A tough, tough matchup so early in the year but it is not out of the cards that the Saints sneak this one in at home. They just need to hold steady in a few areas and they’ll have a chance to take out one of the big dogs in their conference.