Peter King has Some Good and Bad News for Eagles

The way NFL writer extraordinaire Peter King sees it, there is good news and bad news for the Eagles on the horizon.

In his Football Morning in America column is always a good read no matter the topic and there are always plenty of those.

In his first one of the season, he predicts the playoff seeds and plays out those predictions through the playoffs and Super Bowl.

His Super Bowl pick isn’t the Eagles. It’s the Buffalo Bills.

His NFC champion isn’t the Eagles. It’s the Green Bay Packers.

Before casting aspersions, it should be noted – and King does make note of it – that he has correctly predicted the Super Bowl champion in each of the last four years.

Here’s what he had:

Super Bowl 56: Rams over Buffalo (Rams 23, Cincinnati 20).

Super Bowl 55: Tampa Bay over Baltimore (Tampa Bay 31, Kansas City 9).

Super Bowl 54: Kansas City over New Orleans (KC 31, San Francisco 20).

Super Bowl 53: New England over Rams (New England 13, Rams 3).

That’s not the bad news, though, for the Eagles. Unless you think the Eagles can shock the world and make it that far, or unless you think the law of averages will catch up with King and he will be incorrect on his Super Bowl pick for the first time in this decade.

Before getting to the bad news King has in store for the Eagles, here’s the good news: he has them going 11-6 and qualifying for the playoffs as the third seed.

The bad news: he has them losing in the first round of the playoff to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whom he has as the sixth seed. That means the loss would come at Lincoln Financial Field as opposed to last year’s first-round playoff loss to Tom Brady’s Bucs that happened in Tampa.

But there’s more good news. Decent news, anyway.

King has 13th overall pick Jordan Davis finishing third in the NFC Defensive Rookie of the Year voting behind the Jets’ Sauce Gardner, taken fourth overall, and the Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson, the second overall pick.

In more decent news, King had Jalen Hurts mentioned under a topic of “other predictions.”

Here is that segment: “Jalen Hurts is solid as a rock in Philadelphia, Davis Mills has B season playing 17 games in Houston, Carson Wentz survives some struggles to play a full year in Washington.”

Here’s how King has the playoff field stacking up:

NFC seeds

1. New Orleans (12-5). Note of the week: Saints have beaten Tom Brady’s Bucs in all four regular-season meetings, and none of the four has been a one-score game.

2. Green Bay (12-5). Minnesota threatens, but Aaron Rodgers figures out how to make Rome Doubs a factor early, and off they go.

3. Philadelphia (11-6). DeVonta Smith/A.J. Brown combined to average 14.1 yards per catch last year. Now Jalen Hurts has them both.

4. LA Rams (10-7). This is still a very good team. But it’s a very good team facing a murderous schedule, starting with the Bills in three days.

5. Minnesota (11-6). Is this the year Eric Kendricks finally gets credit for being a top-five NFL ‘backer?

6. Tampa Bay (10-7). Just too much noise and too many injuries around this team. Talent, and Brady, makes the Bucs still a factor.

7. San Francisco (10-7)*. We interrupt this endless quarterback story to remind you the other 51 players on this roster are pretty good.

*Tiebreaker: San Francisco over Dallas (10-7).

Wild card: Green Bay over San Francisco, Tampa Bay over Philadelphia, LA Rams over Minnesota.

Divisional: New Orleans over Tampa Bay, Green Bay over LA Rams.

NFC Championship, at New Orleans: Green Bay 30, New Orleans 17.

AFC Seeds

1.Buffalo (13-4). Finishing 6-0 in the AFC East makes all the difference when so many contenders have tough division slates.

2. Baltimore (11-6). Decimated by injury in 2021, fairly healthy in 2022—including at quarterback. Important in Joe Burrow’s division.

3. LA Chargers (11-6). Accomplishment of the year: Chargers going 4-2 in the toughest division since the 2002 realignment into eight divisions.

4. Tennessee (10-7). Slight nod over the Colts, by virtue of the Titans averaging 35 a game against Indy in their last three meetings, all wins.

5. Kansas City (11-6). It’s almost pick-’em with the Chargers, because I think the passing game will be fine post-Tyreek.

6. Cincinnati (10-7). The first-place schedule brings Cincinnati down to earth a bit, but the Bengals will be a threat still.

7. Miami (9-8)*. TuAnon, rejoice. It’s not just Tyreek who’ll make over this offense. It’s Chase Edmonds rushing for 1,200 yards.

*Tiebreaker: Miami over Indianapolis (9-8) and Las Vegas (9-8).

Wild card: Baltimore over Miami, LA Chargers over Cincinnati, Kansas City over Tennessee.

Divisional: Buffalo over Kansas City, LA Chargers over Baltimore.

AFC Championship, at Buffalo: Buffalo 26, LA Chargers 20.

Super Bowl 57, at Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 12, 2023: Buffalo 30, Green Bay 23.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.