Stephen A. Smith Blatantly Disrespects Eagles in NFL Team Rankings

Stephen A. Smith has made a living off of his hot takes, but this time he’s gone too far.

On Wednesday’s episode of ESPN’s First Take, Smith revealed his top five teams in the NFL right now. Even by Smith’s standards, the list was pretty shocking.

Um, what?

Putting the Eagles at No. 5 is just plain disrespectful. Yes, that Week 1 game against the Patriots was closer than it should have been, but we still won, didn’t we?

And did Smith forget we were in the Super Bowl earlier this year? He must be suffering from short-term memory loss.

Let’s look at the rest of this list. The 49ers are really good, sure, but would anyone rather have Brock Purdy at quarterback than Jalen Hurts? They also got a boost from playing the Steelers in Week 1.

The Cowboys are pretty good, too, but ranking them second seems a bit ridiculous. Smith is clearly overreacting to their 40-0 beatdown of the Giants. Which was impressive, sure, but it’s also the Giants.

Then the list really starts to go off the rails. Putting the Dolphins at No. 3 is absolutely insane. They gave up 34 points in Week 1 and barely beat the Chargers. Their offense is amazing, but their defense is pretty flawed and their run game is non-existent. A top-10 team? Sure. But a top-3 team? C’mon.

Ranking the Browns ahead us also seems incredibly suspect. Yes, Cleveland dominated Cincinnati in Week 1, but the Bengals clearly weren’t ready for that game. The Browns have a terrific defense and Nick Chubb is a monster, but Deshaun Watson still doesn’t look like himself and definitely doesn’t qualify as an elite quarterback right now, even though Cleveland’s paying him like one.

So yeah, Philly should be much higher on this list. Maybe not No. 1 or No. 2, but definitely better than No. 5.

Smith worked in Philadelphia for a long time before joining ESPN, so he should know better. It’s hard to take him seriously with a list like this, but hopefully it motivates the Eagles to go out and crush the Vikings on Thursday.

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