Saturday, May 6, 2017

Eagles Look to Beat the Odds to a Winning Season in 2017

Heading into Doug Pederson's first season at the helm as the Eagles' new head coach, the Oddsmakers in Las Vegas had the Eagles pegged as a seven-win team when it came to their projected win totals for the 2016 regular season. The Birds held true to form with a 7-9 record on the year. Some of the top books in the sports gambling capital of the world recently released their win total projections for the upcoming season and Philly's total climbed to 8.5.

When you look how this projected win total compares to the rest of the teams in the NFC East, the Eagles appear to be in position to seriously compete for a NFC East Division title in 2017. Washington went 8-7-1 last season and its projected win total for next season actually dropped to 7.5 for 2017. The New York Giants clinched a wild card spot in the playoffs last season with a regular season record of 9-7 and they are expected to match that mark again in 2017 with a projected win total of nine wins. Dallas turned things around in a big way after sinking to just four wins in 2015 by posting the best record in the NFC last season at 13-3. The Oddsmakers are looking for Dallas to take a step backwards next season with a projected win total of 9.5.

Based on these numbers, the race to the 2017 NFC East title should be a good one that might just go down to the final week of the regular season when the Eagles play host to the Cowboys and the Redskins go on the road to face the Giants. I quickly went through Philly's regular-season schedule when it was first released in early April and came up with a projected record of 7-9, but following a fairly productive draft and a favorable stance from Las Vegas when it came to its win total projections, I am amending my prediction to 9-7. That may or may not be enough to land the Eagles back into the playoffs for the first time since 2013, but either way I do feel confident that they will remain right in the mix with New York and Dallas in the division title race.

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