The Philadelphia Eagles will take on Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Philadelphia finished the regular season with a record of 9-8 after a gut-punching loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Nick Sirianni and his staff chose to rest their starters while Dallas took a much different approach. Mike McCarthy decided to play his starters to prepare for the playoffs and it paid off. Dallas crushed Philadelphia with a final score of 51-26. Although the Eagles were playing its backups, it was still a painful loss and it won’t get any easier. The Eagles will head to Tampa and look to knock off the defending Super Bowl Champs.

The Buccaneers will enter the postseason as the second seed in the NFC. The Buccaneers have been hit by the injury bug this season. Wide Receiver Chris Godwin is out for the remainder of the season after tearing his ACL earlier in the year. Tampa is missing its star Running Back Leonard Fournette as well. Fournette is questionable to return in the postseason, but he likely won’t make it back in time to face Philadelphia. Antonio Brown was cut this past week after an incident in New York, so the Bucs are missing some key receivers. But, when you’re talking about the Greatest Quarterback of All Time, sometimes your supporting staff doesn’t matter. In past years, Brady has made subpar teams look like Super Bowl Contenders. There’s no questioning that Philadelphia will have its hands full next weekend. 

Tampa Bay smoked the struggling Carolina Panthers with a final score of 41-17 this past Sunday. Tampa finishes the regular season with a record of 13-4. It’s clear that the Buccaneers’ offense has enough firepower to defeat anyone even without Antonio Brown, Chris Godwin, and Leonard Fournette. Philadelphia will have its hands full with Brady, especially since the team hasn’t faced a franchise quarterback since Justin Herbert in week nine. The Eagles haven’t beaten a playoff team all year. The bottom line is that the Eagles haven’t won this season against a quality quarterback. As the seventh seed in the NFC, the Eagles will be underdogs in the playoffs. But as we learned in 2017 “An underdog is a hungry dog.” Philadelphia will need to keep up that “dog” mentality if the team looks to defeat a strong Tampa Bay team.