Higher seed. Check. Division champions. Check. A home playoff game. Check. Factor in a head coach holding a 4-1 record in the wild-card round, and you would think the Eagles would be overwhelming favorites in Sunday’s playoff tilt against the Packers.
However, a quick channel surf reveals the opposite. Most of the national pundits are picking the Packers to win.
The Eagles, who often have the locker-room TVs tuned to ESPN, don’t really care. If anything, they plan to use it as motivation.
“Yeah, a little chip on your shoulder. You take pride in it, and you want to shut everybody up,” said linebacker Moise Fokou. “I think a lot of the season we were the underdogs until we proved ourselves. We actually like that role, it makes us work harder.”
A message sent down from veterans like Quintin Mikell. The starting safety sat in front of his locker yesterday, trying to hide a smile while proudly wearing a “NFC East Division Champions” hat.
“It is frustrating, that we have all these questions — we are division champions — and we have to answer all these questions, ‘Can we do this? Can we do that,’” Mikell said. “We’re just going to put all that into motivation and study a little bit harder this week and be ready to play.”
Or, in simpler terms.
“Win four games and you win the Super Bowl, and hopefully that’s the case for us,” said center Mike McGlynn.
