BakoSaint

We beat the Eagles with their starting QB out. The 49ers shut us out 13-0, that is not giving them all they could handle, they went up 3-0 early, led 10-0 at the half, made it 13-0 early in the 3rd quarter, and didn't pile on more points because they didn't need to, this was our worst loss of the season and we were dominated. The game was very similar to LSU's performance in the 2012 National Championship against Alabama, minus a 4th quarter piling on TD. We did hold our own against the Bengals but the Bengals were not a good team in the 1st half of the season. The Bengals were 2-3 when we played them and were a 4-4 team in the first half of the season. They went undefeated in the second half but were just not great when we played them, and they still beat us. A reasonable thing to conclude about our 2022 season is not that we gave a bunch of great teams tough games, its that we were able to pick off a lot of close wins against teams playing backup and rookie type QBs. If I remember right, we did not beat any team in 2022 who was using the same QB who was their starter in 2021 and remained their starter at the end of 2022, we beat all unstable/new/changing QB situation teams, except we could not beat the Panthers.

Boston Saint

So injuries are an excuse for Philly but not us? Ok.
If you watched the niners game, yes we did give the Niners all they can handle. We played them closer than any other team during their seven (I believe) game win stretch. It took a bad fumble by us and bull**** ref calls to beat us.
I’m not going to bother refuting you point by point because it’s not going to change anything. You look at things with a clearly negative view on whatever Mickey Loomis on the side to do. It’s the complete opposite of Guido, who looks at it with a completely positive viewpoint. I’d like to stay in the middle of myself because I realize there’s things they’ve done well and there’s things they haven’t done well.

You think you know, but you don’t know...and you never will! Coach Jim Mora

BakoSaint

It's hard to say what's an excuse, a reason, or an explanation. When I say excuse, I mean we are excusing it in order to justify a better record next year on the basis that it won't happen again, and therefore we can deduct its effects. I think that is BS. If Eagles fans are predicting a 16+ win season and claiming Jalen Hurts missing 2 games last year was a fluke and really they were essentially a 16-1 team last year then I disagree and consider that a lame excuse.

Did the Eagles go 14-3 not 16-1 last year because Jalen Hurts missed 2 games? Yes. Can that be their excuse? I guess. Will they go 16-1 next year? Probably not. Why not? Probably Jalen Hurts will miss a few games next year too, because he runs a lot and got injured the previous year and its kind of predictable. If not, someone else will get hurt among their stars, probably.

Did the Saints go 7-10 not 10-7 last year because of many injuries to many aging and injury prone players on one of the oldest rosters in the NFL filled with players who might be cut on other teams whose salary cap management strategy allows them to absorb the cap hits of cutting injury prone players? Yes. Can that be the Saints excuse? I guess. Will they go 10-7 or better next year? Probably not. Why not? Probably a similar set of players will miss a similar number of games because the roster is still built to lead the NFL in injuries, with guys like Peat, Thomas, Hill, and Winston returning a year older, mostly with more injuries, still among the oldest rosters in the NFL, but unlike most teams with old rosters the Saints did not cherry pick healthy older players and cut injury prone ones, they restructured the contracts of the injury prone ones for short term cap savings.

Essentially the most likely injury scenarios for the Saints and Eagles are what we saw in 2022 repeating in 2023. The Saints will probably have a ton of injuries. The Eagles will probably see Jalen Hurts pull a Lamar Jackson and miss a few games. Both will have excuses I guess, but those excuses will not predict bounce backs, because those excuses will be built around facts that repeat every year until something big changes. Hurts is a running QB who takes hits. The Saints are an old team that restructures and extends cripples.