Three reasons the Eagles will beat the Packers, and beat them handily on Sunday

Thinking out loud about the Eagles’ wild-card matchup with the Packers on Sunday …

There is a path to victory here for the Packers. These aren’t the Giants of a couple of years ago. Green Bay has a head coach who can dial up a game plan, a quarterback who can throw downfield, and a defense that finished the regular season ranked in the top six in points allowed, yards allowed, and turnovers. This is a tougher matchup than a No. 2 seed typically would expect in the wild-card round.

That being said …

With the line sitting at minus-4.5 as of Friday evening, the Eagles are the third-heaviest favorite of the weekend, behind the Ravens (minus-9.5 over the Steelers) and Bills (minus-8.5 over the Broncos). That’s an implied win percentage of roughly 69%. Which, frankly, feels a bit low, given what we know about these teams.

1. Jordan Love is a wild card even when healthy.

The Packers quarterback is one of the highest-variance players in the league. In the regular season, he was one of only three quarterbacks in the league to complete 12-plus passes of 40-plus yards, alongside Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson. But he completed just 63.1% of his passes overall, tied with Will Levis for 31st among 39 qualifying quarterbacks. His penchant for throwing off his back foot is evidenced by his lackluster on-target percentage of 73.2. The only quarterbacks who finished with a lower mark: Anthony Richardson, Cooper Rush, Jameis Winston, Aidan O’Connell, Dak Prescott, Spencer Rattler, Bryce Young, Caleb Williams, and Mason Rudolph.

» READ MORE: Whatever Nick Sirianni’s future, the Eagles coach can take pride in his present

The Eagles defense demands a quarterback be on target. The consistency simply isn’t there for Love, who is at his best when the Packers are not asking him to do too much. He threw 10 interceptions in his first seven games of the season while averaging 34.3 pass attempts per game. In his last eight starts, he threw just one interception while averaging 23.1 pass attempts per game. In fact, Love has not thrown an interception since Week 11, a stretch of 173 attempts without a pick. The Packers likely will need to air it out on Sunday. This is a vastly different Eagles run defense from the one that allowed 163 yards to Josh Jacobs & Co. in Week 1.

That does not bode well for Love or the Packers. Remember, as good as he was in stretches last postseason, Love’s two interceptions in the last 17 minutes and 18 seconds of play in a divisional-round loss to the 49ers were a big reason why the Packers were unable to finish off the upset.

2. The Eagles are far more battle-tested than a Packers team that lost five of seven games against playoff teams.

Among the five teams with the best Super Bowl odds, only the Bills had a losing record against playoff teams during the regular season. But Buffalo’s three losses came coupled with a pair of signature wins: 48-42 over the Lions and 30-21 over the Chiefs. Meanwhile, the Ravens (7-3), Chiefs (7-2), Lions (6-2) and Eagles (4-2) were a combined 24-9 against the rest of the postseason field.

The closest the Packers came to a signature win was, what, a 38-10 win over the 49ers in Week 12? They beat the Rams in Week 5 when L.A. was without Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. They beat the Texans in Week 7. But they were 0-4 against Detroit and Minnesota, along with their Week 1 loss to the Eagles.

In Week 17, the Packers were down 20-3 and 27-10 to the Vikings before scoring a couple of late touchdowns. In fact, Minnesota outscored Green Bay, 55-17, in the first three quarters of their two matchups. Likewise, the Lions entered the fourth quarter with a 24-6 lead in their first meeting of the season. The Packers gave them a game at Ford Field in early December, losing 34-31 on a 35-yard field goal from Jake Bates as the clock struck zero. But that also was a Thursday nighter.

3. When Jaire Alexander’s away, the opposing receivers will play.

Love drew much of the credit for the Packers surprising performance last postseason, when they blew out the Cowboys in their wild-card game and then gave the 49ers all they could handle in the divisional round before losing on a Christian McCaffrey touchdown run with 1:07 left.

But let’s not forget about Alexander, one of a small handful of elite cover corners in today’s NFL. In the win over the Cowboys, the 27-year-old All-Pro played a big role in holding CeeDee Lamb to two catches and 18 yards in the first two quarters of a game Green Bay led, 27-7, at halftime. Dak Prescott was 2-of-6 with two interceptions when targeting Lamb, with Alexander snagging one of those two picks.

Against the 49ers, the Packers held Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel to a combined five catches and 56 yards on eight targets.

Alexander won’t be on the field against the Eagles on Sunday, lost to a season-ending knee injury. He was a central figure in the Week 1 matchup, picking off a pass while also allowing a long A.J. Brown completion. Outside of that 67-yarder, Brown caught four passes for 52 yards.

Over the last two seasons, the Packers are 10-10 when Alexander isn’t in the lineup.

It should be 10-11 after Sunday.

The Eagles play in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs against the Green Bay Packers. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest story lines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Lincoln Financial Field.