The Philadelphia Eagles have grabbed a lot of headlines this offseason, from signing running back Saquon Barkley in free agency to stealing the show at the NFL Draft to locking up both of their top wide receivers to long-term contract extensions.
However, oddsmakers do not have the Eagles as the biggest threats to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC next season.
That title belongs to the Detroit Lions, and Fox Sports analyst Craig Carton disagrees.
During a recent episode of The Carton Show, Carton declared that Philadelphia is the second-best team in the conference.
Carton says that the Eagles had a tremendous offseason and that while we still need to see what their draft picks do on the NFL level, they should be ranked ahead of the Lions.
Philadelphia is two years removed from a Super Bowl appearance, so claiming that it is the No. 1 threat to the 49er in the NFC is not a crazy assertion.
However, we must also remember what happened to Philly last season.
The Eagles got off to a 10-1 start in 2023 and looked primed to repeat as conference champions, but they proceeded to lose five of their last six games to become the first team in NFL history to not post 12 wins after winning 10 of their first 11 contests.
On top of that, Philadelphia was routed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
This led to speculation that Philly could potentially fire head coach Nick Sirianni and possibly replace him with Bill Belichick, but the Birds opted to keep Sirianni.
Did the Eagles do enough this offseason to wash away the stench of the back half of 2023?
It remains to be seen, but Carton certainly seems to think that Philadelphia has a better shot than Detroit of dethroning San Francisco.
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