The Eagles released their playoff hype video, and it’s actually kind of depressing

The Eagles have played like one of the worst teams in football over the last six weeks. The Birds lost five of their last six, including games to non-playoff teams like Arizona, Seattle, and the Giants — squandering their chance at an NFC East title and home playoff game.

The fan enthusiasm around the team is so bad that Darius Slay joked Thursday that it was good the team was playing on the road so they could avoid the boos. And one of the most popular stories over the final two weeks of the season was about a fan who went viral for voicing her frustration.

In the first-round playoff hype video released ahead of Monday night’s wild-card matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Eagles didn’t waste any time acknowledging the team’s recent poor performance.

”The fans are frustrated,” Jason Kelce said in the narration. “We’re frustrated. The playoffs are here, and we’re not where we want to be yet. This is when you’re most tested as a team.

“We believe in every player in this locker room, in our will, in our hearts, to push through. We’ll do anything for this team — and the city. It’s time for the playoffs. Now is when we come together. It’s about who wants it most. And I know we [bleeping] want this.”

On Friday, Kelce talked about being the voice of the hype video. With the team’s stumble down the stretch, Kelce said the video is as much a reminder to the fans as it is to the players of what they’re capable of at peak strength.

“I think, obviously, we’re frustrated with the way we performed the last month and a half, but I think at the end of the day we put ourselves in a position to be in the postseason,” Kelce said. “And we’ve played really good football at times this season. It’s a reminder to ourselves and to the fact that if we go out there and play up to the potential that we can play, that we compete with anybody on any given week.

“It pretty much is what it is, it’s an honest assessment of what’s happened recently, but also an honest assessment of what can happen if we get the thing turned around.”

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Ahead of the 2023 Super Bowl run, the Eagles released a hype video that was decidedly different in tone.

The top-seeded Birds had also lost two of their last three games, but they still secured the top seed in the NFC. The Eagles avoided the wild-card round, and played their first game in the divisional round against the Giants.

The video not only embraced the Philadelphia fan and city ethos in line with the “It’s a Philly Thing” rally slogan, but it also featured a few big-name celebrities.

“The desire to be the toughest the longest,” the video, narrated by Dawn Staley, Rob McElhenney, and Morris Chestnut, said. “A mountain you never stop climbing. A dog mentality. It takes a certain type of person. A thicker skin. A swagger you only understand if you’re one of us. It started in Philly, but now it stretches around the world. For Eagles fans, devotion is handed off to each generation, the heartbeat of our team. We come from different blocks and different neighborhoods, to unite on gameday. It’s a Philly thing, and to us, it means everything.”

Sure, that was an entirely different vibe — and an entirely different round of the playoffs — but it was still the first hype video of last postseason. So how does this year’s compare to the last time the Eagles played in a wild-card game?

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Well, in 2022, the Eagles snuck into the playoffs with a 9-8 record and were similarly headed down to play Tampa Bay for a first-round matchup. The Birds were in their first season under Nick Sirianni and went 4-11-1 the year before, so making it into the playoffs at all was seen by many as an achievement.

But the hype video pushed back against that narrative. And, like this year’s video, it even featured an offensive lineman as narrator. That’s really where the comparisons stop.

”People say to me, ‘You did it. You got into the playoffs,’” Lane Johnson said to start that year’s video. “You think everything we put into this dang season was just to get in? Yeah, let’s buckle up now.”

» READ MORE: Lane Johnson could be NFL Man of the Year. He’s driven by the motto of a Doylestown Marine killed in Iraq.

The hype video is designed to get fans excited for the playoffs — and unlike last year, there’s not a lot of Eagle fans feeling positive about the playoffs right now.

The Eagles acknowledging frustration and poor play might seem like an odd choice for a video built to get fans excited. But if the replies to the video are any indication, it seems like it worked, perhaps because fans may have felt an overly positive message avoided the outsized elephant in the room.

If the Eagles beat Tampa on Monday night and advance, there will be another hype video for the divisional round. Maybe a playoff win will lead to a more enthusiastic video.

Staff writer Devin Jackson contributed to this report.