Some people are fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. This 2015 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.


Your team: the Philadelphia Eagles


Photoshop by TNL

Your 2014 record: 10-6



Your coach: Adolph Rupp… I mean CHIP KELLY! Yes, it’s deranged urinal monitor Chip Kelly, who may or may not have been bitten by a rabid squirrel this offseason. I have no other viable explanation for his recent actions.

This offseason, Kelly was handed full control over the Eagles roster and promptly nuked it into oblivion. I have a 3-year-old child, and the remarkable thing about a 3-year-old is not that they make a huge mess, but that they can make a mess so QUICKLY. Just a wave of my son’s arm and an entire train set will be in shambles on the floor. That’s what Chip Kelly has done to the Eagles. It took just one offseason for him to turn the entire organization into a game of 52-card pickup. HE NEARLY TRADED FOR DION JORDAN! This man has gone mad from syphilis.

And his motives remain completely, utterly obtuse. No one has any fucking idea what his plan is. When the most obvious explanation for your personnel moves is that you’re vaguely racist, that’s not good (Fun fact: The Eagles had the whitest roster in football even before this offseason). Otherwise, Kelly has made moves like a drunken fantasy owner who needs to be reminded by concerned friends that he drafted five RBs in a row and forgot to take a wideout. As it stands now, Riley Cooper might be the best wideout on this team. RILEY FUCKING COOPER. Join us in October when the Eagles sign Keith Elias and Chris Doering out of retirement. Kelly will never have to worry about either man not knowing his assignment.


Your quarterback: Not Marcus Mariota. This offseason, Kelly shipped away Nick Foles, who is not Marcus Mariota, along with a draft pick (that did not become Marcus Mariota) for Sam Bradford, who is ALSO not Marcus Mariota. In fact, Sam Bradford is so far from being Marcus Mariota as to be his diametric opposite: fragile, immobile, unreliable, and at the very tail end of his potential. You’re not gonna believe this, but the Eagles say Bradford “looks great” in practice this summer. He’s so sharp! Why, I bet he’s feels healthier than he’s ever felt! He’s really ready this time, guys! Nothing is gonna stop him from...

******AS WE SPEAK BRADFORD IS STRUCK BY AN ONCOMING CSX FREIGHT TRAIN******

Aw, man! And he was doing so well!

I don’t know what football people see in Sam Bradford, honestly. He’s never healthy. He is made entirely of replacement parts taken from cadavers. His numbers over the past couple years are demonstrably worse than Foles’, particularly when it comes to yards per attempt. He can’t throw for big yardage. He doesn’t make the receivers around him better. He doesn’t thrive with a decent rushing attack. He won a Heisman because Heisman voters will throw their support behind any moron Big 12 QB running a spread attack. There’s no magical 40-TD season to be unearthed from Sam Bradford.


Once Bradford impales his leg on his own fractured collarbone, the Eagles backup QB options are the highest of high comedy. Yes, you will see Mark Sanchez again this season. It’s unavoidable. Behind Sanchez is Matt Barkley, because why have one failed USC quarterback when you can have two? I hope both of them are caught swiping on Tinder from the shitter at halftime.

And behind those two shitheads, of course, there is the ULTIMATE WEAPON…


Christ. No, literally. You signed Christ. Tebow should publicly wash the feet of Eagles fans in an act of supreme self-flagellation. WE MUST SHARE GOD’S LOVE, EVEN WITH OUR FILTHIEST OF CREATURES. I better cram in as many Tebow jokes as I can here before Kelly finally mercy-cuts him next week. At least, you better hope he cuts Tebow. Because if he doesn’t… Oh, God. Oh God, what if he follows through on using Tebow as a two-point conversion specialist? And then Tebow makes ONE nice QB dive in an early game while the other QBs struggle? What if Skip Bayless says…

NO. No, I can’t. I won’t let it happen. I will infiltrate NORAD and enter the nuke codes if I have to. We can’t let Tebowmania happen in Philadelphia. It would be like a volcano erupting inside a hurricane. No one would be spared. I would rather burn to death.


What’s new that sucks: Congratulations, Eagles fans! You now own every running back except for LeSean McCoy. Yes, you signed DeMarco Murray AND Ryan Mathews, which means that your running backs are somehow even frailer than your quarterbacks. Watch as Kelly has them run the triple-veer offense for one week before everyone gets hurt.

Keep in mind that Murray set team records for Dallas last season behind an absolutely brilliant offensive line. He will not have the same luxury in Philadelphia. This line was fucking horrid last season, and it’s even worse now that Kelly has run guard Evan Mathis out of town. One day, Kelly will pull a Joshy McDaniels and cut everyone, and then operate the team using only AVATARS, who are controlled through cognitive telekinesis. Until that day, the only holes Murray will see on the field this season are the ones in Bradford’s knee joint.


It gets worse. Jeremy Maclin left for KC and has been replaced by Miles Austin’s huge jaws. Trent Cole is gone. McCoy was outed as a lousy tipper before getting shipped away. CB Brandon Boykin got cut and reamed Kelly on his way out of town. The defense, already shaky, is highly dependent on a new linebacker coming off a devastating knee injury. Frank Gore pulled out of signing with the team because they were such a shitshow. All of the cap money has gone to Byron Maxwell’s bar tab. Prosthetic legs have gone missing. Players openly hate practicing. Donovan McNabb can go eight full weeks before realizing his Twitter has been hacked by Russian pornographers. Riley Cooper—who, again, is somehow a starting wideout here—was the team’s literal poster boy for Black History Month. Everyone who leaves this team now makes a point of burning every last possible bridge on the way out. Everyone remaining is probably bitter that the team dangled them in front of the Titans in hopes of getting Mariota.

It’s fucking chaos.

What has always sucked: I dare you to explain how fucked up the Eagles are to a WIP caller. You will be covered in chocolatey saliva within three minutes. #TrustTheProcess. Beneath their asshole facade, these are the most gullible fans in America. Say the word “metrics” to them and you’ll buy yourself an extra 10 years of employment. God, Philly fans are fucking morons.


What might not suck: Before all this happened, Kelly appeared (please note that I am stressing “appeared” here) to be a razor-sharp football mind who could get the most out of the players given to him. To believe in the Eagles, you must believe that Kelly’s management acumen is as pronounced as his on-field strategic acumen, which is… uh… a stretch.

Hear it from Eagles fans!

Mark:

I don’t even care anymore.

Doug:

Each and every thing the team does is met by rage and indignation or blind optimism.


Carter:

Our fans immediately dismissed one of the most electrifying players in team history, at a historically weak position for the team, because of specious rumors about gang relations, and dismissed one of the best running backs in the entire league after a “down” year where he ended up 3rd in the ENTIRE league (behind only Demarco Murray’s ridiculous season and 50 or so yards behind Leveon Bell’s breakout campaign), playing behind a decimated offensive line with Mark Sanchez as his goddamn quarterback. We are allergic to signing MLBs without some history of horrible foot/leg injury.


Jesse:

Here is what is likely to happen this season: First, Eagles start off 2-0 including a beat down of Dallas in week 2. Sam Bradford throws for 800 yards and 10 TDs and Murray runs for 200 plus each of the first 2 games. Everyone is excited and the Booyah network is already proclaiming the Eagles the team to beat. Next, week 3 Eagles at Jets. Early in the game Sam Bradford drops back only to destroy his knee ala Rodney Peete. Sanchize comes in throws 5 picks and gets cheered by JETS fans all game. Eagles lose 45-6. Eagles lose their next 6 games. Chip Kelly quits moments after learning the Titans have fired the Wiz and is hired within 24 hours by Titans. Chip wins 5 Super Bowls in 6 years with Mariota at the helm while the Eagles win 5 total games during that time. Fuck the Eagles and fuck Chip Kelly for trying to convince me Sam Bradford won’t get hurt because of his bullshit sports science.


Scole:

I have convinced myself that when Bradford goes down 5 min into training camp, Tebow will be a perfect fit in Chip Kelly’s offense. Someone shoot me.


Jonathan:

Remember that year when our QBs were Koy Detmer, Bobby Hoying, and Rodney Peete? Well say hello to Bradford, Sanchez, and Tebow/Barkley. SMDH. Makes me wish Eagle games were played with a continuous clock like soccer so it would all be over quicker.


Brian:

For the past 8 years of my life I have lived in 2 separate houses, each exactly 1 block from the Satanic asshole that is the Pats/Genos intersection at 9th and Passyunk. Every single fucking Sunday I watch swarms of mouth-breathers from south jersey and delco slather themselves in cheez whiz and yell racist or homophobic comments towards people walking by for not wearing eagles green. This starts promptly at 6 am during the season and usually lasts until after midnight on home games. Every single game day there is a fight where some asshole wearing his Sunday best sweatpants will be declared a winner. Every single game day I am tasked with cleaning up cheesesteak wrappers from the front of my house. Fuck these people.


Mark:

I just hope that, in his first snap, Sanchez will be lined up behind Tebow at center for some reason, then Sanchez butt fumbles, only it goes up Tebow’s butt and he has to go to confession after.


Sean:

The only people who hate Eagles fans more than the rest of the universe are other Eagles fans.


Kat:

My dad, a season ticket holder, is a die-hard Eagles fan and the cheapest man on earth. He will take one of his three kids to one game each year (pre season only). The only Eagles jersey he ever bought was Mike Mamula. Once the Workout Warrior pulled his dick out at that club during training camp my dad, rather than toss the jersey, cut the name panel off and still to this day wears a blank #59 jersey.


Edward:

We haven’t won a title since my grandfather was my age. Since then, it’s been 50 years of getting face fucked. By the way, pop-pop is dead.


Ryan:

Two of their most memorable plays in the last 30 years are a 4th down catch in a Divisional Playoff game by Freddie Mitchell and a 90 yard punt by their Quarterback.


Chris:

Every greasy cannoli-inhaling specimen from South Philly named Vito and Rocco along with the South Jersey riff raff portion of our fanbase that still crashes high school parties at the age of 32 bought up all the Riley Cooper jerseys that went on clearance at Dick’s sporting goods after he made his racist remarks. Mention one word about how our current Snuggle the Fabric Softener Bear look alike coach has dismantled the entire roster and you’ll hear an entire gaggle of our troglodyte, painkiller addicted white trash fans blurt out “DURRRR Chip knows what he’s doing DERP” in between sucking down a whippet and wolfing down a sandwich made from the shaved meat of a cow’s sphincter slathered in cheese whiz which we consider to be Michelin star quality cuisine. The official collective voice of all Eagles fans is a guy in Bakersfield that goes by eatdatpussy445 and does fast food reviews on his YouTube channel in between bitching about how fucked this team truly is. We traded Nick Foles for a quarterback that has shoulders made of Funyuns.

Andy:

I once saw a girl so shit-faced drunk that she was being carried down the steps of the upper deck completely incapacitated. And the game hadn’t even started yet.


Colin:

So I’m taking a bus through southern NJ en route to Philly last September right after week 1. At one stop on come this guy who is dressed as a reject from Sons of Anarchy and his girlfriend who has more fingers than teeth. Naturally this couple sits directly in front of me and I of course don’t have my headphones. We’re still a good hour from Philly so I was lucky enough to hear their tales of various times they got arrested, went to rehab, went back to jail, etc. Then another guy gets on and sits in the row across from us wearing an Eagles shirt and then the fun begins. The biker noticed the shirt and immediately talks to the guy about how the Eagles are going all the way this year and how impressive they were in week 1 (they beat the Jags and were down 17-0 at halftime). Then an impromptu “FlyEagles Fly” chant is started and the biker takes out a bottle of whiskey and starts swigging. It was 2:30pm on a fucking Monday. Also the guy in the Eagles shirt took a piss on the floor right as he was sitting in his seat. Fuck the Eagles.


Marchman:

I have no real idea why Philly drivers would be notably terrible but they’re by far the worst I’ve ever been around. Chicago drivers are dangerous lunatics, but they’re predictable in their aggression and rage; Philly drivers are terrifying because they’re totally unpredictable. I routinely see people driving in two lanes at once, driving and parking on the wrong side of the street, driving and parking in bike lanes, turning with no signal, etc.


Phil:

The best thing the Eagles have given me in my fandom was a poofy early-90s Apex coat. It has a lot of triangles on it because that was how we rolled in the early 90s.


Mike:

My dad took me to an Eagles game at Veterans Stadium in the mid-90s when I was a kid. We got to witness an overweight Kenny Rogers look-alike in a Jerome Brown jersey beat the shit out of an opposing team’s fan in the concourse. My dad looked at me and said “Mike, this is why you have to try hard in school.” Our fan base is in love with Sam Bradford simply because he’s a 6’4 white quarterback.


Frank:

We traded away everything that made us good.

Brandon:

Growing up an Eagles fan is the necessary preparation I need for being mediocre throughout life. I’ll have nice, personal, victories here and there, and I’ll have some memorable moments. But alas, I’m an Eagles fan, and that means that I’ll never get a corner office, get married, and have a family. That means that I’ll have the woman of my dreams right in front of me, and on 3rd and 4, I’ll say something to sabotage the entire relationship and ruin my shot. And just when I think that things might get better by hiring a life coach/financial planner who shows promise, he’ll intentionally shit all over my life and ruin what little I had going for myself. I’ll be 50 years old and overweight, wearing a Randall Cunningham jersey at the Linc, telling the young kids throwing batteries at Cowboys players about the good ol’ days. Fuck this team. Fuck Chip Kelly. Fuck you mouth breathers in South Philly.

Brendan:

The best years this team ever saw were under Mr. Ham Sandwich Andy Reid whom this fan base immediately turned on after he left. But whenever BUDDY FUCKING RYAN is brought up, this fan base cumulatively cums in unison.


SW:

If you bought an Eagles jersey the past three years, say bye to that player.

Timothy:

Our coach is a control-freak, paranoid schizophrenic with zero personality. He thinks he can throw anyone into his insane system and they’ll never lose. He makes them go full pads on Saturday. Lesean McCoy probably told him “Hey coach, you think we could take it easy on Saturdays so my legs are fresh tomorrow?” And Kelly’s response was “HOPE YOU LIKE WINGS AND ARMAGEDDON TYPE SNOW STORMS”.


Alex:

My dad and I had a bet last year on the amount of passing yards the Eagles would give up. I set the line at 4200 (262.5/game) and took the over. They gave up 4238. I know this team well enough to predict within 1% margin of error how bad they will be.


Joel:

No one can convince me that Chip Kelly doesn’t have a secret vendetta against someone in the chain of command the way he’s dismantling the team piece by piece. He is going to fuck us into the dirt, and laugh his ass all the way back to Oregon. Being an Eagles fan is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Ian:

Washed-up offensive lineman Tra Thomas once snatched my Eagles cap off of my head and signed it after I specifically declined his offer to do so. He then handed me a stack of of 20-30 autographed pictures of himself, which were printed on regular office printer paper and badly pixilated.


Jonathan:

Our team sucks because we consider ourselves a gold standard in the league, without winning anything. Our fans suck because 50% of the fanbase is made up of Delco Penn State wannabe garbage that actively debates on sports radio that we should win more games because we have a white QB now.


Bob:

You all laugh now, but when Chip finally gets the roster he wants and figures out a blocking scheme for the DoubleWide 10 — one center, 10 QBs — it’s going to make Bill Walsh look like Woody Hayes. While I was writing this Sam Bradford blew out both ACLs fumbling for his credit card at a RedBox.


Tony:

I have no doubt that come late December I will be exactly where I was last year: Wearing a Christmas sweater, trying to convince myself Mark Sanchez is capable of getting this team into the playoffs.


Emil:

Their MVP this season will be the guy that drives the injury cart.

Sebastian:

Fuck Todd Pinkston. I email you this every year but Jesus H Christ I stopped believing in Santa Claus because of that dude.


Hank:

I know fairly rational and level-headed people who are 100% “In Chip We Trust” and spout off mantras like “Chip’s working his plan” and “have to keep working the plan.”


John:

Only Philadelphia Fans can be dumb enough to believe that trading Foles and a draft pick for Sam Bradford could actually work under Chip Kelly’s system, when it’s clear as day he put all his eggs in one basket, to get Mariota, and that backfired.


Ed:

I went to the Eagles-Giants game last season and sat next to a guy covered in horrible tattoos and wearing a Nnamdi Asomugha jersey. Instead of cheering or booing anything, he only yelled “FAGGOT” and racial slurs as loud as he could.


John:

Our coach is possibly the most enigmatic and infuriating man on the face of the earth. I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t actually have a house and he just lives deep within the bowels of the Novacare complex. He is most certainly not a real person, and is more likely a cyborg programmed to infuriate football fans everywhere by being extremely promising in the beginning only to cut any and all semblance of talent from the roster so he can have people do it his way, which I’m sure involves skinning and sacrificing a cat to the fucking sun god before every game.


Submissions for the 2015 NFL previews are now closed. Next up: the Cincinnati Bengals.