Former New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo is high on his old team, who he believes will win the NFC East this year. He’s also fairly down on the other three teams in the division－the Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, and Washington Redskins.
McAdoo’s comments about the reigning, defending Super Bowl champion Eagles were particularly eye-catching. He believes the champs will struggle to cope with last year’s sudden success.
“I think Philly, how much success has Philly had?” McAdoo said per Paul Schwartz of the New York Post. “I think they’re gonna have a hard time handling success.”
It should be noted that McAdoo was interviewed to become the Eagles head coach in 2016, but Philly picked Doug Pederson. Two years on, and Pederson is a Super Bowl champion while McAdoo is out of a job.
It’d be interesting to know exactly what about success McAdoo thinks the Eagles will struggle to handle. Did he mean the increased expectations of being defending champs? Maybe it’s the potentially inflated egos in the locker room? Maybe a bit of both, and some other factors as well.
The Eagles will certainly not have it any easier this year. They now have a bull’s eye on their backs as champions, and teams will have scouted Carson Wentz and the offense a bit more. They won’t be catching anyone by surprise.
Maybe McAdoo turns out to be right. After all, defending a championship is always much tougher than winning it. But it’s also possible that the Eagles show that last year was no fluke and that Doug Pederson proves to have much better staying power than McAdoo did in his season-plus in New York as they claim another division title.
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