Eagles’ old heads will play 17th game, but at least it’s against the Jets | Marcus Hayes
Washington goes to Buffalo, the Giants to Miami, the Cowboys to New England. As it turns out, last place has its virtues.
It’s a good thing the Eagles have 11 picks in April’s draft. They’re going to need as much young blood as they can get.
The NFL, in its cruel quest to make as much money by grinding the bones of its product and partners -- the players -- is about to officially add a 17th game to an already overlong schedule. ESPN said the final approval is expected from the virtual league meetings scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday. As such, the Eagles got bad news -- and good news.
The bad news: No team in the NFL has a roster whose six best players are all over 30.
The good news: The 17th game reportedly will be against the Jets, the NFL’s worst club. It’s the closest thing to a sure win the Eagles could ask for. Meanwhile, the rest of the NFC East will visit the good teams that populate the rest of the AFC East. Washington goes to 13-win Buffalo, the Giants to 10-win Miami, the Cowboys to seven-win New England, where Bill Belichick just redecorated his roster. As it turns out for the Eagles, last place has its virtues.
Still, a 17th game will be murder for a team like the Birds, so top-heavy with 30-somethings.
Eagles center Jason Kelce is 33, constantly plays through injury, and annually contemplates retirement. He just finished his worst season since he was a rookie, according to profootballfocus.com.
Defensive end Brandon Graham will be 33 next month, and while he just made his first Pro Bowl, he faded as the season waned.
Right guard Brandon Brooks will be 32 in August; he suffered a shoulder injury before the 2019 playoffs, then missed 2020 with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Right tackle Lane Johnson turns 31 in May, and so does the ankle that finally collapsed on him in November.
Darius Slay, the falsely advertised shutdown corner added last March, is 30, and he’s coming off consecutive disappointing seasons.
And finally, while defensive tackle Fletcher Cox made his sixth consecutive Pro Bowl on Dec. 21, eight days after he turned 30, Cox had one sack in all of December.
The 17th-game approval will cement what the NFLPA agreed to in 2020, when it narrowly passed a collective bargaining agreement that runs through 2030. The new CBA expanded both overall rosters and game-day rosters by two, to 55 and 48, and the 17th game will boost the players’ revenue share from 47% to as much as 48.8%, depending on television revenues.
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The extra game will mean at least one fewer preseason game -- which, in its face, seems great. However, veterans assuredly will still play in at least one of the remaining preseason games; they all won’t just be no-name scrimmages.
The 17th-game proposal was hotly debated among players last March. Stars such as Aaron Rodgers and J.J. Watt opposed the CBA mainly due to the 17th game.
Saints running back Alvin Kamara agreed Sunday when the latest news broke, tweeting: “[Explicit] dumb... as hell..”
Former Eagles receiver Torrey Smith, now retired, was more eloquent:
Smith is right. He knows firsthand that the Eagles already do an atrocious job of keeping their players healthy.
Anyone who thinks that a 17th game isn’t a big deal has no concept of the physical abuse absorbed by NFL players in a single football game, much less 16 of them. You might have a problem with math, too: Imagine increasing your work year by 6.25%. And please, don’t compare orchestrated collisions with 300-pound men with your 9-to-5 job as an actuary.
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The accumulated deterioration of players’ bodies after 16 games is the single biggest reason why teams with first-round byes have such a huge advantage in the playoffs. Then again, the Buccaneers didn’t need a bye this year, and their 43-year-old MVP was the oldest player to ever win a Super Bowl.
Seventeen games? No problem for the Bucs.
Tom Brady will just drink an extra pint of unicorn blood.