The one opportunity left for the Philadelphia Eagles in a disappointing season is the chance to play spoiler.
Flexed into Sunday Night Football for the final week, the Eagles are the only NFC East team eliminated from postseason contention before Week 17. A win over Washington, however, can keep the D.C. team from getting into the playoffs — making the winner of the Cowboys-Giants game the division’s champion.
Eagles defense coordinator Jim Schwartz said not allowing Washington to celebrate a division win is motivation enough for an otherwise meaningless Week 17.
“We’ve got to have a no-hat rule this week,” Schwartz said, via PennLive. “We can’t let opponents put division win hats on at the Linc. There’s a lot of pride in that, and all our focus has to be [on] accomplishing that this week.”
Schwartz’s defense has been torched this season, including last week’s 20-point loss to Dallas, in which the Philly secondary made Andy Dalton look like Roger Staubach.
Asked to evaluate his defense in 2020, Schwartz said it’s one game too early for appraisals. Those come after their final chance to do something meaningful during the 2020 season, even if that’s simply to rain on someone else’s parade.
“There’s too much at stake,” Schwartz said. “It might not be at stake for us as a team with a playoff berth and things like that, but we’ve got a lot of individual things that players still can accomplish. We’ve got guys that are trying to earn their way in the league, and we have a division opponent that’s going to come and try to celebrate on our field.”
