Acme Packing Company
The Eagles can thank injuries for their Super Bowl appearance.
It’s easy to nitpick coaching decisions, drops, special teams blunders, and officials just handing Patrick Mahomes extra possessions for no reason, but a lot of the time it just comes down to health. Football is a tough game, and I feel like we sometimes gloss over just how important health really is as we, the fans, tend to fall back on the idea of “next man up” when sometimes the next man up is Eric Stokes, or Travis Glover, or Malik Heath.
The Packers lost to the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs 22-10, after falling behind early on a fumble by Keisean Nixon that was incorrectly awarded to the Eagles, but even if things had ultimately gone Green Bay’s way, it’s hard to see how they would have fared going forward without Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, and possibly without Jayden Reed as well. Injuries crushed the receiver position over the course of the game (and the previous two games), leaving the Packers helpless against Philly’s suffocating man defense.
The Eagles, on the other hand, remained relatively healthy throughout the season and into the playoffs, and wound up facing the Washington Commanders instead of the Lions largely because the Lions’ entire secondary all suffered injuries at the same time. Normal DBs Carlton Davis, Khalil Dorsey, and Amik Roberston basically missed the game (Robertson played 2 snaps), forcing safety Ifeatu Melifonwu to move into a corner role, with Kindle Vildor and Terrion Arnold playing increased minutes. It turned into a matchup nightmare against Washington’s dynamic passing attack, which, in tandem with a ferocious defense performance that turned Jared Goff over four times, meant that Philly would not be facing the best team in the NFC at all. The Lions persevered well with a banged-up secondary until they ran into an actual good team, and that’s often the story of the NFL playoffs in a nutshell. Philly won the playoff lottery, defeating the seven, six, and four seeds en route to the Super Bowl.
I think it’s important to keep this in mind when we evaluate the 2024 Packers because injuries were a major issue. Remember, the Packers were fundamentally a good team, with a top-ten offense and defense, and when they struggled on offense, they were generally missing key contributors. Their first loss to the Vikings was largely due to Jordan Love not having completely recovered from his early season knee injury, but it’s also worth remembering that Christian Watson only played nine snaps in that game. In their early December loss to the Lions, they were missing Romeo Doubs, who struggled with concussions down the stretch. And of course, they lost Watson for essentially all of their final two games of the season, losses to the Vikings and Bears.
The Packers may not have had it as bad as the Lions (who also played most of the season without star pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson), but looking back,...
