Five Big-Picture Takeaways from Eagles Week 3 Win Over Jets

For the first time since Chip Kelly took over as head coach, Eagles fans had to wait out the team’s first win of the season. After two weeks of head-scratching and finger-pointing, the ever-difficult first victory of the season came on the road against a 2-0 New York Jets team. Given the state of the rest of the division, the prospect of falling to 0-3 on the season wasn’t the death-blow in terms of wins and losses that it would have been psychologically to a team still learning its way.

The Jets are not considered one of the elite teams in the NFL. They were coming off a pair of impressive wins, but are very much a flawed team in the grand scheme of the league. New York depended a great deal on opponents’ miscues and a Chris Ivory-led run game to jump out to their 2-0 mark. Winning in the NFL is extremely difficult, so the Eagles will gladly embrace their first notch in that column. Every losing fanbase in the league can likely come up with dozens of excuses as to why the odds were stacked against their team in a losing effort. There is no doubt Jets fans will be harkening to injuries and mental miscues as reasons for their loss.

Given the way the game played out, it’s difficult to imagine what the Eagles fanbase would be like had they left MetLife Stadium an 0-3 team. Even with the majority of national consensus working against them, there is always the desperation factor that takes part in NFL games. The Eagles were desperate and likely benefited because of it. They were able to overcome their own laundry list of injuries to take down a very talented Jets team that was seemingly matched up to send Kelly’s team home empty-handed. Without getting in to the minutia of the contest, the Eagles are in a much better place as a team than they were at the start of the weekend.

Going beyond the surface is where things get difficult evaluating this team. On one hand, the Eagles are a week 4 win over Washington away from starting their season 2-2 and, seemingly, past their dreadful start. On the other hand, for a team many figured to be constructed for legitimate postseason contention, fans are still waiting for validation of how good this team could possibly be. Given the unforgiving nature of the league, there is very little time where the ‘making adjustments’ excuse can be used when losses pile up. The Eagles staved off that conversation for the time being. They did not necessarily douse the notion that there are issues keeping this team from rising to the top of the NFC.

Having duly noted the ‘a win’s a win’ narrative, here’s what jumped out about Sunday’s game as it translates to the rest of the season.