The Eagles have become America’s Team, or close to it. The Patriots have become boring.

OK, thought experiment.

Let’s say the Eagles were opening their regular season Sunday (which they are). And let’s say they were facing an opponent that had not won a postseason game in more than four years (which they are). And let’s say this opponent, over the previous three seasons, had won 25 regular-season games and lost 25 regular-season games, making it perfectly mediocre during that period (which it has been). And let’s say this opponent had a starting quarterback who last season ranked no higher than 17th in the NFL in completion percentage, touchdown passes, or yards per attempt (which he did). And let’s say one of the most credible reporters who covers this opponent had recently accused its head coach/general manager of keeping “his head in the sand, thinking that running the ball and taking care of the ball … is going to deliver another championship” (which this reporter did in fact say).

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Would you be afraid of that opponent?

Would you?

Would you think that opponent was interesting?

Would you?

That opponent, of course, is the New England Patriots. And if it were not for the presence of Bill Belichick, his resume and reputation, and the presumption that he might cook up some strategy or scheme to steal a Week 1 victory from a superior team, there would nothing to make the Eagles’ trip to Foxborough anything but one of their most humdrum matchups of the season.

It’s not just that the Patriots aren’t America’s Team — and they were that for their 20-year run of excellence, despite whatever Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys might think — anymore. It’s not just that Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski and Randy Moss and Julian Edelman and Richard Seymour and the dozens of other terrific players who, with Belichick, were the engine for those six Super Bowl victories and nine AFC championships are all gone. It’s that the Patriots now are just kind of … there. Who’s their superstar? Who’s their game-breaker? Who’s their game-wrecker? Who’s their big mouth?

The Patriots used to be a feast of great teams and great storylines. They were the best quarterback in the NFL and the best coach in the NFL and the best and most respected and most hated franchise in the NFL. Now they’re unsalted butter on white bread.

“It’s different going there when they don’t have Brady and they don’t have Gronk,” Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson said Friday. “As far as having a dynasty, they had it good for pretty much two decades. It is a turning of the guard. It happens.”

Who has the juice in the sport now? Who provides that combination of excellence and celebrity and accessibility that the league is looking for in its teams and stars? Their loss Thursday night to the Detroit Lions notwithstanding, the Kansas City Chiefs fit that bill. Defending Super Bowl champs. Top quarterback in the league: Patrick Mahomes. Top coach in the league: Andy Reid. Dynamic skill-position player with an edgy personality and a popular podcast: Travis Kelce. Then … well, the Eagles are right there with them.

There’s a reason the Eagles have five prime-time games and another eight 4 p.m.-or-later games on their schedule this season. Jalen Hurts has endorsement deals with Nike and Hulu. He’s becoming a national star, if he isn’t one already. Jason Kelce had to hustle to shower and change after practice Friday, because he had to attend the red-carpet event for the eponymous documentary about him and his brother, Kelce, that will premiere on Amazon Prime early next week. Philadelphia can be such a myopic, parochial market, so focused on its own teams and athletes, that its residents and sports fans can miss or underestimate the impact that those teams and athletes are having and the favorability rating they’re garnering around the country. The Eagles matter in a way the Patriots don’t anymore. Of course, the secret to continuing to matter is to forget that you matter, if you can, and concentrate laser-like on winning football games.

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“You do your best,” Kelce said, “not to listen to the outside noise.”

For a long time, the Patriots were harder of hearing than any team in the NFL, and they had to be. Back in 2019, when New England was coming off its most recent championship, former Eagles quarterback Cody Kessler was backing up Brady, and he marveled at the culture within that locker room and the manner in which Belichick and the players sustained it.

“It’s everybody,” Kessler said then. “It’s the leaders, the guys who have been here a long time. These guys have been here for so long, and they’re guys you want to follow, guys you look up to and learn from. Tom is who he is. He’s the best quarterback who ever played, and he’s been the best teammate I’ve been around — the way he is, the way he does things, his process, talking to him. He wants to win, and he brings everyone else along with him, and I think that’s the key to a leader: a guy who can be that dominant on the field but still get guys to play their best. That’s something he does day in and day out.”

Sounds a little like the Eagles. Sounds a little like their quarterback. Sounds a lot like the team their opponent Sunday used to be.