The Birds fly home for the bye week

Just a short while after the throttling of the division rival New York Giants on a primetime, head coach Chip Kelly had his team back at the facilities early Monday morning.

Chip was quite out of character with his chipper attitude over the 12 hour span, smiling, laughing, even jumping on all-pro left tackle Jason Peter’s back out of joy after the win. Clearly pleased with his team’s performance over the first six weeks, he has given his guys the entire bye week off to rest (with the exception of 2 mandatory workouts) before resuming a regularly scheduled game week next Tuesday in preparation for the NFC West division leading Arizona Cardinals.

Kelly has preached tempo since he landed in Philly. That has always been his M.O. as a coach and it has found him great success developing a reputation around the league as a coach that stays ahead of the curve. Tempo has gotten them off to a league best 5-1 start and also has seemed to effect them off the field.

The headline Monday morning was the remarkably fast team picture getting the entire team, every position group, the coaches, and the training staff done in 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Chip said he had never seen anything like it, some guys were in full uniform in the morning meetings to make sure everything would get done fast. Now I am sure the driving reason behind this was to get home ASAP and squeeze every minute out of their one week off during the season, but regardless whether this team is driving down the field or taking a team photo, they are going fast.

Now back to that first place, 5-1 record (best start since the super bowl run in 05′). Preseason projections had the Eagles right around 9-7, 10-6. Well after starting 5-1 those projections have quickly been scratched, consensus says this team should finish no lower than 11-5.

Though the second half of their schedule is undoubtedly the tougher half, they will be getting a lot of key contributors back from the injured list.

An offensive line that was the backbone of this team last season when they took the division has not played a single game this season in unison. Poor results running the ball and some problems Quarterback Nick Foles has experienced throwing all seem to trace back to this decimated line. On the bright side, they have weathered the storm and found ways to win all but one game in which they came up about a yard short and are just 2 games away from being at full strength for the home stretch of their schedule.

The main focus of this latter half of the season is a three game stretch from week 13 – week 15, Dallas, Seattle, Dallas. Not only the defending world champions coming to the east coast to square off with the Birds in Philly, but 2 match ups with the long time division rival Cowboys in a three week span.

Past meetings with the cowboys were fueled by the hatred that comes along with a historic rivalry, not necessarily a battle for first place. The Eagles have been in the playoffs the majority of the past decade while the Cowboys have finished .500 for as long as I can remember. Well this year the ‘8-8 Cowboys’ have seemed to put it all together and are firing on all cylinders.

Offense was never a question with Dallas, they have always had the weapons especially after solidifying the o-line in the draft with first round pick Zack Martin, the defense is what has typically held them back.Not this year surprisingly after cutting ties with seven time pro bowler Demarcus Ware and losing defensive play caller Sean Lee before the season even started.

What seemed like a recipe for disaster to most ended up being a blessing in disguise for this Dallas team because this group of no names has banded together and played well enough to post a league best 5-1 record through six weeks tying them for first in the NFC East with Philadelphia, coming off of a victory in Seattle (which is unheard of).

Barring anymore injuries, the Eagles are scheduled to have Center Jason Kelce, Guard Evan Mathis and RB/PR Darren Sproles back by this point. Both teams will likely be in prime position to take the NFC East by this point in the season as long as they are able to avoid looking ahead and suffering any trap game losses.

A lot of football fans view Thanksgiving as the greatest the greatest day of the year because of the food and the football. As a Philadelphia fan, a matchup with the Dallas Cowboys for first place on Thanksgiving day in Jerry’s World is going to be a dream come true.