The Philadelphia Eagles have their toughest game of the season in Week 13 when they go down I-95 to play the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens are an 8-4 team who haven’t lost a non-divisional game since Week 2. They’re a good team.
The Eagles are on a tear of their own, winning seven straight games by a combined 107 points. It’s been led by a phenomenal defense and a historically prolific running game. This is going to be an awesome football game that could very well be a Super Bowl 59 matchup.
3 bold predictions for Eagles in potential Super Bowl matchup vs. Ravens
This Ravens’ defense isn’t anywhere close to the historically vaunted Ravens defenses of the past. They do this thing where they don’t let anyone run on them but allow just about everyone to piece them apart through the passing game. Their offense is different; they’re just all-around good.
Bold Prediction: The Eagles win
It’s not great that saying the Eagles winning a game is a bold prediction, but it kind of has to be. One of the things Lamar Jackson is famous for is that he’s 23-1 against NFC teams. The only game that he lost was against the Giants in 2022. It’s been six seasons, and for whatever the reason, Lamar has been dominant against teams outside of his conference.
It’s just another one of those magical AFC North things: the Steelers always have a record at or above .500, the Browns always stink, the Bengals have a great team but can never win, and Lamar Jackson punks teams outside his division.
Bold Prediction: The running game or the passing game is a non-factor
There are two very different thoughts going into this: the Ravens have a dominant run defense, but that’s never stopped the Eagles before. Also, the Ravens have a terrible passing defense, but the Eagles' passing offense has been lackluster relative to what it should be.
The Eagles are either going to give grease to the squeaky wheel and dominate through the air, or they are going to go strength on strength and shove the ball downfield with Saquon Barkley.
The passing game hasn’t been everything it could be this season, and a lot of that seems like it’s due to the lack of DeVonta Smith. The hope here is that the Eagles used their mini-bye week to self-scout why the passing game isn’t where it could be, but unfortunately, they couldn’t completely fix it because Smith was out in Week 12 with a hamstring thing.
There’s no guarantee that Smith will be back for this game, but on Wednesday’s practice report he was listed as a “Did Not Practice” and on Thursday’s he was listed as a “Limited Participant.” So at least he’s headed in the right direction.
Per Next Gen Stats, the Ravens defense has allowed the most 15+ yard plays in the NFL. They’re allowing almost eight of those per game. Nick Sirianni loves himself an explosive play, and if we can see that the Ravens are susceptible to those, you know that he has been frothing at the mouth knowing they’ll be there.
On top of that, Sirianni is a players’ coach, and if he knows one player (Smith) has been underutilized, he’ll make sure that player gets his due. There would be no better time to do that exact thing than in the toughest game of the season.
On the other hand, the Eagles' running game has been rolling for almost two months. If he sees a team that hangs their hat on their ability to stop the run, Sirianni is hard-headed enough to see that as a mountain he needs to climb to exert his dominance.
The running game is dropping 193.4 yards per game. Maybe they won’t put up gaudy numbers like that, but they can take over if they want to. Just pound the ball until the other team gives up, just like they have over the past seven games.
Maybe there’s a blend of a dominant run and pass (that would actually be optimal), but it sure feels like they'll lean on one or the other until the game gets put away.
Bold Prediction: A special teams blunder plays a part in the game.
It becomes more and more clear that Justin Tucker is washed up. In 2023, he made 32-of-37 field goals and four of those misses were from 50+ yards. This season he’s made 17-of-23, two of those misses are from 40 to 49 yards, and four are from 50+ yards. He doesn’t have the automatic powerhouse leg that he used to have.
That’ll be important against an Eagles defense that has only allowed 11 touchdowns in the past seven games. If they keep that trend going, it will force the Ravens to march out their definite Hall-of-Famer, but now oft-errant and unreliable kicker. Not only will missed mondo-sized kicks keep points off the board, but they’ll also give the Eagles great field position.
Unfortunately, Jake Elliott hasn’t been nails this season either. He’s made 17-of-22 field goals this season, and unfortunately, he’s missed all four of his 50+ yarders. That’s not great.
One of these two guys is going to have a problem at some point. They’re two historically great kickers who look like they might be slipping. It’d be poetic for either of them to bungle a late-game scenario in a late-season game. That’s just how football works.