We take a look at the NFL teams on bye in Week 7 and how the season is shaping up for them
With Week 6 in the books, we turn our attention to Week 7 and the next two teams heading into their bye weeks—the Philadelphia Eagles and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
These are two teams entering into their breaks with very different types of momentum. The Eagles are coming off a dismantling of the New York Giants while the Bucs just got thumped again, this time by the Baltimore Ravens.
Let’s take a look back at how the season has gone, and what the rest of it will bring.
Philadelphia Eagles, 5-1
The Eagles were 4-1 heading into their game against the Giants, but they didn’t look like a 4-1 team. This was a group which routinely fell behind in games early or squandered leads and which was struggling offensively.
LeSean McCoy hadn’t looked good in the first leg of the season, and Nick Foles was erratic and inconsistent at quarterback.
That changed, for the most part on Sunday night.
McCoy finally looked like the guy fantasy owners drafted with their first round pick, running without hesitation and trusting his offensive line, while Foles mostly looked calm and poised.
The key here was the offensive line, which manhandled the Giants defensive front. The line has been dealing with a ton of injuries, the most problematic being the ones sustained by Jason Kelce and Evan Mathis. The line was also without second-year tackle Lane Johnson for first four games due to a PED suspension.
Johnson came back in Week 5 and you could immediately see an improvement in the line play, but it was Week 6 where things really came together. The Eagles offense finally looked like what we expected it to look like and any other NFC team watching should be concerned.
Assuming they can keep it up, that is. The Giants played uncharacteristically flat Sunday night and it got worse when Victor Cruz went down with a torn patellar tendon. They play the Dallas Cowboys this weekend, so we’ll see if the Eagles just pounded another team which ends up being sub-par or if the Eagles are indeed as good as they looked.
That may come down to Foles who, while he played a lot better than he has recently, still made too many boneheaded decisions which resulted in turnovers.
The Eagles get a tough test right out of the gate in Week 8 when they head to Arizona to take on the Cardinals, then after a trip to Houston, they see the Carolina Panthers at home and the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau. The Seattle Seahawks are also on the schedule, as are the Dallas Cowboys (twice in three weeks), Washington and the Giants, who will want some revenge.
With a tough second-half schedule, the Eagles will be tested nearly every week. If the defense can play like it did on Sunday and the offensive line continues its improving play, they’ll be in the hunt for the division title.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1-5
In the interest of full disclosure, I really thought the Buccaneers would fight for the division title and maybe make a run in the playoffs. Of course, that was before the whole “Josh McCown is my quarterback” debacle to start the season and their wealth of offensive line injuries.
Nothing is working the way it is supposed to. Doug Martin has been banged up and ineffective at running back, the quarterbacks—both Josh McCown and Mike Glennon—have been underwhelming (though Glennon less so) and the defense hasn’t played as well as we all expected.
Which is a stunner for a Lovie Smith coached team.
This next week has to be about getting on the same page and figuring out what is going wrong. At 1-5 the season is slipping away but they can still salvage it.
The schedule won’t be doing them any favors though. After the bye they welcome the Minnesota Vikings to Tampa, but then have to travel to Cleveland to play the surprisingly tough Browns. After that they play division rival Atlanta, a competitive Washington team and then finish the season with a very tough slate—playing the Bears in Chicago, then Cincinnati, Detroit, Carolina (both away), the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints.
That last stretch of games has the potential to be brutal and if the Bucs play it the way they’ve played these first six games, it won’t end well for anyone.
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