Reeling Eagles now without top offensive weapon for Wild Card playoffs

It's easy to forget that the Philadelphia Eagles were a 10-1 football team after defeating the Buffalo Bills in an overtime thriller. They were in first place not only in the NFC East, but in the conference as well. Jalen Hurts was in the MVP discussion, and despite some close calls, the Eagles just felt like a team of destiny after last season's heartbreaking Super Bowl defeat.

Since that win over Buffalo, the Eagles have lost five of their last six games and lost out on the division title to the Dallas Cowboys. Their only win over the last month and a half was a game on Christmas Day against the Giants that they nearly blew.

The Eagles are headed to Tampa as a team that hasn't looked like a playoff team in over a month now. Things have been going extremely poorly for them, and now they appear to be taking another turn for the worst with A.J. Brown ruled out of Monday's game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Eagles WR A.J. Brown ruled out of playoff opener vs. Bucs

Brown injured his knee in the first quarter of the Eagles Week 18 loss at MetLife Stadium and did not return. Now, after working hard to try and make himself available for their playoff opener, Brown has officially been ruled out. This is a crushing blow for this Eagles team that has not been executing offensively even with their top wide receiver.

The Eagles have scored under 20 points in four of their last six games, and that's even with Brown playing well in a couple of those games. The Eagles will have to find a way to score without their leading receiver who reeled in a career-high 106 catches for 1,456 yards.

With Brown out, the Eagles will need other weapons like DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, and D'Andre Swift to really step up, and they'll also need Jalen Hurts to shoulder the load offensively. The Eagles are more than capable of beating a 9-8 Bucs that they already defeated earlier this season, but with Brown out, their road to doing so becomes that much tougher.