Commanders’ explosive rise has Eagles fans shaking in their boots

Aren't divisional rivalries just the best?

The Philadelphia Eagles are the defending Super Bowl champions. They have the best roster in the NFL. They made the Kansas City Chiefs, the dynasty of the past five years, look silly on the sport's biggest stage.

Two weeks before that, they ended the Washington Commanders' season in the NFC Championship game to the tune of 55-23. Surely they should be happy and secure with their success, right?

These are Philly sports fans we're talking about. They're not.

Resurgent Commanders are living in Eagles fans' heads rent-free

Jimmy Kempski of Philly Voice published an article titled "10 reasons the Commanders will be a dumpster fire this season". It's just as juicy as you'd expect.

Some of the post's claims, such as Washington was unsustainably lucky in close games last season and that the Commanders' pass rush is a weak spot, can be considered valid. But there are plenty of others which are baseless at best.

Kempski argues that Washington will regress simply because other teams that had major improvements in the win column regressed (often barely) the following year. Not to beat a dead horse, but this is a laughable omission of context.

How many of those teams were led by a rookie quarterback, a first-year head coach, and a debuting general manager? How many of them were as aggressive the following offseason as the Commanders have been in acquiring major pieces to improve their roster?

Not many, that's for sure.

Kempski then also brings up a similar fallacy that Jayden Daniels' performance levels will drop in Year 2. Again, simply because other quarterbacks who had strong rookie seasons had sophomore slumps. What this ignores is that on the chart provided, Washington's signal-caller had a better QBR last year than any other first-year passer listed aside from Dak Prescott.

Even a marginal downturn in performance would still make him better than the vast majority of quarterbacks in the NFL.

The rest of the article is full of petty potshots, such as the claim that Frankie Luvu is "overrated" and that Washington's coaching staff are "fake tough guys." The Commanders' roster is "too old" is another tired take, as if players like Bobby Wagner and Zach Ertz aren't still reliable, valuable contributors.

All in all, it further affirms that Washington is feared as a threat to the Eagles' throne. That should be considered the ultimate validation.

Philly fans are supposed to be loving life right now. Instead, they're mad that they have to share the positive attention.

They're mad that people think Daniels is better than Jalen Hurts. They're mad that people think the Commanders can win the NFC East (if not the entire NFC) this year. Mostly, they're mad that the team whose stadium they used to mercilessly invade on an annual basis is no longer a punchline.

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