The Eagles’ bubble is about to burst

When a disaster occurs, there are usually signs long in advance. The 2008 financial crisis, for example. Mortgage lenders got messy and reckless with their money, giving loans to people who had no business receiving them and no way to afford them. But hey, the housing market is in great shape. If those people can’t afford their homes, they can just sell them to people who can at a profit. What could go wrong?! Oh, housing prices inflated and inflated, creating a bubble that was bound to burst. Then Wall-Street got involved, high-risk loans were sold off to investors, and housing prices tanked – the bubble burst. With the high foreclosure rate now directly intertwined with the economy, the entire country faced a massive recession and millions of people lost their homes. It was easy to see the disaster coming, both in real time and now with the benefit of hindsight. The same can be said for the 2026 Philadelphia Eagles. After losing their third consecutive game in unthinkable fashion, the Eagles sit at 2-3 with a long list of injuries, and an even longer list of issues without even as much of a hint of potential solutions. Future Hall of Fame right tackle Lane Johnson abruptly retired last week, citing his mental health as a large reason why. This came after the Eagles lost to the Los Angeles Rams after holding a 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter – the same game in which they lost Saquon Barkley to a hamstring injury, on top of already being without wide receiver DeVonta Smith due to his own hamstring injury. After Johnson retired, the Eagles traded Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens to the Baltimore Ravens, receiving a 2028 second-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick in return. And after losing two Pro Bowl offensive linemen, and playing without their two best skill position players, the Eagles trudged their way to just 232 yards of offense against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London, yet still kicked the go-ahead field goal with eight seconds remaining. But somehow, they would find a way to choke away their 17-16 lead, allowing Ameer Abdullah to return the kickoff to their 39 yard-line, setting up a 57 yard field-goal from Cam Little to walk it off for the Jaguars. Like 2008, though, this crash didn’t just stem out of nowhere. This dates back to the 2025 season. After defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, things went downhill. Star wide receiver A.J. Brown wasn’t getting the ball, and made it a near weekly occurrence to voice his frustrations, whether it be on social media or through the Eagles media. It was an awkward tension that hung in the air, regardless of a win or loss. After an exhausting season that was spent talking more about what happened on Monday-Saturday than the actual games that were played, Philadelphia was mercifully put away by a depleted San Francisco 49ers team 23-19 in the wild card round. It marked the end of a season where the Eagles, despite all of their talent, finished 23rd in success rate and 19th in scoring. It also marked the end of A.J. Brown’s career in an Eagles uniform, as he was traded to the New England Patriots. And thus began the reconstruction of Philadelphia’s receiving corps. Smith was elevated to the No. 1 role, which he has shown he is more than capable of handling. The Eagles then drafted USC standout receiver Makai Lemon, and pieced together the rest of the room by signing Hollywood Brown and trading for Dontayvion Wicks. On paper, the unit is solid. In practice, it has been a disaster. Smith has dealt with the aforementioned hamstring injury, which has kept him out of two games. Lemon is averaging just 7.2 yards per catch, and Hurts is averaging less than 190 yards passing. Through five weeks, the Eagles’ offense ranks 30th in EPA per play and 30th in passing success rate. They also can’t put points on the board, ranking 29th in scoring. Which leads us to the bubble. The bubble that will inevitably pop. Jalen Hurts’ contract is becoming worse by the day. He ranks 31st in EPA per play (min. 25 dropbacks), and carries a dead cap hit of $101 million in 2027. His contract’s total value is the seventh-highest among quarterbacks, and his play is much closer to reflecting that of the 27th best quarterback in the league. In terms of 2026, they have to play with 52 players on the roster after Johnson’s retirement due to him carrying over $63 million in dead cap for this season. For the future, there is a lot of money tied up in older players. Saquon Barkley is going to be 31 and his play is already on the decline – he carries a cap hit of over $13 million and a dead cap north of $28 million in 2027. Zack Baun will be 32 – $11.8 million cap hit, $22.2 million dead cap hit. Jonathan Greenard will be 31 and currently has zero sacks – $11.1 million cap hit, $43.5 million dead cap hit. The iceberg is in sight, and the ship has no way to change course. With each loss and offensive inefficiency, the bubble inflates that much more, and the collateral of the burst could include head coach Nick Sirianni. If there is anything the Eagles have shown, it’s that no one, not even a Super Bowl-winning head coach, is safe if results yield. That was the cold open. This is the Hot Read. Three and out The Bills and Rams have real problems The Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams gave us an instant classic on Monday night, with the two teams combining for seven lead changes, 35 fourth-quarter points, two fumbles, one blocked field goal, and one game-winner from Tyler Bass to give the Bills a huge road win (Josh Allen’s first in OT) to get them to 4-1. Despite the win, though, this isn’t a Bills team with a sustainable style of winning. Through five games, Buffalo has surrendered at least 30 points three times, and gave up 29 last week to the New England Patriots. Their 166 points given up are the most in the NFL, and opposing offenses have picked apart their secondary at will. They’ve allowed the second-most passing yards and second-most touchdown passes in the league. This completely inadequate play on defense makes the margin for error next to zero for Josh Allen and the offense. And while the Bills’ offense has been good, ranking first in the league in EPA per play and points per game, we’ve seen this movie before. Come playoff time, their defense will cost them, once again. On the other side, the Rams have a roster full of future Hall of Famers, and yet they sit at 2-3. One game got away and was stolen from them on a pass interference call that the NFL said shouldn’t have been called, they opened the season in Australia where the ball was kicked off about 9 minutes after they arrived, and special teams woes from a season ago have carried over into 2026. Harrison Mevis missed a pair of kicks that would have sealed a win over Buffalo, and the opening kickoff was nearly returned for a touchdown by Ray Davis and set up a Bills field goal. Special teams cost the Rams last year in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks, which ultimately cost them the No. 1 seed. It could cost them much more than that in 2026. While both the Bills and Rams are popular picks to represent their respective conferences in the Super Bowl, they both have glaring issues that, if left uncorrected, will have both spending Valentine’s Day with their wives instead of facing each other in a rematch for all the marbles. The Broncos offense still stinks It was only a matter of time before Sean Payton took back play-calling duties for the Broncos, and eagle-eyed readers will remember I predicted that to happen in my 61 Predictions piece back in July. I said it would happen in Week 9, and he beat me by a month. On the surface, it makes sense for Payton to take over as the play-caller. Many argued he shouldn’t have given it up to begin with, and with him taking back the reins, the offense would improve. Except it didn’t. Denver put up just 224 yards of offense, with Bo Nix going 16-of-27 for just 123 yards. If you look at Nix’s passing charts from Week 4 and Week 5, they look virtually identical – a ton of passes behind, at, or just beyond the line of scrimmage with very few shots downfield and the middle of the field completely vacant. Sean Payton took over play calling and Bo Nix passing chart is virtually the same. The Broncos know. https://t.co/amBUMJ41Dz pic.twitter.com/OYCUD93zYP — Jarrett Bailey (@JBaileyNFL) October 11, 2026 The play-caller may have changed, but one thing remains very evident that we’ve touched on all season – this is not a coaching staff that believes in its quarterback. And in case you needed a deeper look at how poor Nix has played, he’s 29th in EPA per play (one spot behind Deshaun Watson), 33rd in success rate (0.1 percent higher than Cam Ward), and his average depth of target is just 5.81 yards downfield, good for 39th in the NFL. This isn’t a franchise quarterback, and the Broncos know it. Now they get to take that offense on the road to Seattle on a short week – Godspeed. The Packers bring the Bears down to Earth The first four weeks of the season were rough for the Packers. They allowed 22 fourth-quarter points in Week 1 to lose to the Vikings, had to put together a first of its kind comeback against the Jets, got boat-raced in their home opener against the Falcons, and barely beat the Buccaneers sans Baker Mayfield. But in Week 5 against their arch rival Chicago Bears, they came to life. Jordan Love connected on four passes that were good for 40+ yards, finishing the day with 367 yards and two long touchdowns to Christian Watson. Defensively, the Packers picked off Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum three times en route to a 31-7 blowout win. In finally seeing their offense take off, the Packers also sent Ben Johnson and the Bears back down to Earth, and maybe now we can cool it a bit on treating Ben Johnson as if he single-handedly found the cure for cancer. A week after putting up just under 500 yards, the Packers’ defense limited Chicago to 268. Cracks in the defense certainly peeked through, as well, with the aforementioned deep passing success of Love. They are currently still a top 15 unit in terms of success rate, but the explosive plays against the secondary were what many worried about with Chicago’s defense entering the season, and this is now something to monitor. So after the Bears were treated like the youngest child in a family of four for the first month of the year while the Packers were portrayed as the uncle you don’t want to invite to Thanksgiving but you do anyway to be nice, and then he inevitably drinks one too many and begins sharing his thoughts on the southern border, both are 3-2 – the NFL has a funny way of doing that. Buy or sell Buy: The Commanders need to fire Dan Quinn Maybe it’s an extreme reaction, but when this much incompetence is put on display for a team that is now 1-3-1, what more do you need? I’m sure you’ve seen it by now. The Commanders had the ball in field foal range with 40 seconds left in overtime with no timeouts. And with all the urgency of a divorced father making an alimony payment, the Commanders let roughly 20 second tick off the clock before Jayden Daniels took the snap and dove forward. They couldn’t get back to spike the ball in time, and the game ended in a 27-27 tie as Dan Quinn spiked his headset with the fury of a thousand lame duck head coaches. Less than two years after coaching in the NFC Championship Game, Quinn has one of the hottest seats in the sport. The Commanders are 6-15-1 since getting to within a game of the Super Bowl, and their defense – Quinn’s side of the ball – is 31st in EPA per play in that span. The writing is on the wall in Washington, and I’d bet Anthony Lynn serves as the team’s interim head coach before season’s end. Sell: The Cleveland Browns It was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped with the Browns. Even after a 3-1 start that saw them holding the AFC North lead after four weeks, this team always felt like it had a hard ceiling due to its quarterback and lack of high-end veteran talent. That was all proven correct against the New York Jets, who defeated the Browns in a game that featured rain showers from beginning to end. Despite only having 198 yards of total offense, it looked as if the Browns would steal a win after a Deshaun Watson touchdown pass to Denzel Boston with 6:15 to play. Unfortunately for Cleveland, a bad snap on a late punt was recovered by the Jets at the Browns’ 23 yard-line. Braelon Allen ran it in, and the Jets took a 17-12 lead that they’d never give back. Now at 3-2, they face the Ravens and Steelers in two of their next three games. Buy: The Patriots have found their groove After a horrid start to the year, the New England Patriots have found their mojo. New England started 1-2, and their MVP candidate quarterback looked lost in the midst of it. Through the first three weeks of the season, Drake Maye threw one touchdown to six interceptions. Over his last two games, that ratio went to seven touchdowns and one interception. Four of those scores came against the Las Vegas Raiders in a dominant 45-17 win that also saw Maye throw for 374 yards. Despite starting off the year scoring just 19 points in their first three games, New England ranks first in EPA per play in the last two weeks and is averaging 37 points per game in that span. Sell: Jim Harbaugh as the Chargers head coach in 2027 The Chargers are a McRib presenting to be a Michelin star quality meal. Everyone once again drank their Kool-Aid this offseason – if only they had listened to me. The offense was supposed to transcend the NFL after hiring Mike McDaniel, and that offense currently ranks dead last in EPA per play. Not the Titans, not the Dolphins – the Chargers. Justin Herbert is also fundamentally broke, throwing five touchdowns to seven interceptions while leading a unit that ranks 30th in scoring. Harbaugh was brought in to take the Chargers to the next level, and he has yet to win a playoff game since being hired. This is a team that will tear everything down going into 2027, and that includes the head coach, and maybe even the quarterback. One play that changed everything I had a nice little soliloquy typed up about Kim Kinchens’ tackle on Khalil Shakir in overtime saving the day for the Rams, as it led to Nate Landman’s forced fumble on James Cook that gave the Rams the ball back. Instead, the play that changed everything goes to Buffalo Bills edge rusher Greg Rousseau, who has been on a tear to begin this campaign. Harrison Mevis trotted out to kick the game-winning field goal to sent the Rams to 3-2, but Rousseau broke through and got a paw on the kick, forcing it to land short and give the ball back to Josh Allen and the Bills offense. Allen ran for 32 yards on the ensuing drive and set up Tyler Bass for his own attempt to win the game, which he did, to send Buffalo to 4-1 in an absolute thriller. Prediction to track Week 1: Steelers will trade Joey Porter Jr: Correct Week 2: Rams will beat Broncos handedly: Incorrect Week 3: Lions will blowout Panthers: Incorrect Week 4: Marvin Harrison Jr and Brian Thomas Jr will be traded: Half correct Well, I said Marvin Harrison and Brian Thomas would both be traded before the deadline, and Harrison has officially been shipped to Houston. After a game in London that featured no catches, I won’t be shocked if news of a Thomas trade happens sooner than later for a receiver-needy team. This week, I’ll say that Jordan Love will have another explosive game agains the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night, where he will throw for 321 yards and three touchdowns as Green Bay defeats Dallas 33-27.

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