Philadelphia Eagles – NO +275
I see value betting the Eagles to not make the playoffs this year. Last year the Eagles made an unbelievable run, despite losing MVP candidate QB Carson Wentz to a season ending injury, they still won the Super Bowl. The recency bias of seeing them beat the defending champion New England Patriots has the public thinking the Eagles will not regress. Throughout this run the Eagles were able to benefit from a very favorable schedule. Also the Patriots defense was not very good last year ranking 31 in overall efficiency. People also forget that despite losing the game the Patriots still put up 613 offensive yards in that game. The Eagles also lost their leading rusher LaGarrette Blount and Alshon Jeffrey right now looks like he may be out until week 6 on the PUP list. Also we have yet to see Carson Wentz and he is not guaranteed to start week 1. Even then it will be a tough situation being QB1 over the guy who was Super Bowl MVP last year. It is not common for a team that just won the Super Bowl to not make the playoffs in the following year. However the Eagles are set up to regress this year. Last year seemed like a magical season where everything good that could happen did other than losing Carson Wentz. The NFC East also has a lot of parity. The team to finish in last place has won the division in five out of the past six years. I do not think the Eagles will be a terrible team. However, what they did last year is not easy to repeat and they already have injury issues which is why I like the value in betting the the Eagles will not make the playoffs.
