Ahhh, that time of year when the NFL schedule is released. When football fans somehow rationalize that their team can, in fact, go 10-6 (or 10-7 with this year's 17-game schedule) based on the list of opponents. When you'll hear things like, "sure, this team is better than us, but their short week of rest will get us the win." When the line between being optimistic and being, well, stupid really starts to blur — and we're all guilty of it.
Well, almost all of us. But not 94WIP host and former Eagles fullback Jon Ritchie, who actually falls on the complete opposite end of the spectrum as the football fans who see the schedule for the first time and think, "hey, we might not be so bad after all!" Call him pessimistic, call him a party pooper, or just call him a straight shooter, but Ritchie isn't falling into that trap.
"I'm just blown away at [what] feels like an overreaction by most people. I mean, I think you're one of those people, Joe," Ritchie said on his show with Joe DeCamara. "You saw the schedule, you went down the list, you went win, loss, win, loss, and the numbers that I'm hearing people come up with are ridiculous. I've heard people say double-digit win numbers.
"If you're saying this is anywhere above a five- or six-win team, you're being unrealistic. I think five or six games is right for what this team is capable of. They're a bad team, and a phenomenon has occurred where people got all jazzed up about the new faces of the draft, and the excitement of the unknown... it just erases the truth of our situation, which is [that] you've got rookies who will be depended upon to do great things this year, and even if they do great things, that will lift us to a level of mediocrity..."
Oh, man. Well, five or six wins is somewhat... stomachable? Although you'd obviously like to see a stronger performance than that out of Jalen Hurts and company as they start anew under Nick Sirianni. But hey, at least they'll get wins against some of the lesser teams like the Atlanta Falcons, their Week 1 opponent who went 4-12 last season. Right? Wrong, says Ritchie, who thinks that Atlanta is simply a better team who had some tough luck down the stretch and played in a much harder division. In fact, according to Ritchie, we shouldn't be expecting much at all out of this year's iteration of the Eagles in the early goings.
"This team might start the season 0-7 next year," Ritchie said. "When I look at the schedule, realistically, I am not stretching it to say they might start 0-7 and win their first game on October 31, on Halloween, against the Lions."
The first win of the season on Halloween? That's a scary thought, regardless of the holiday.
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