Odds to win Super Bowl LII

Let me try to understand this, and I swear, I have no intention of being provocative or disrespecting you. Much the opposite, I commend you for supporting your team in good and bad times. 

But let's think about this for a minute. I can understand when people "love it" if others underestimate their *good* teams and predict them as underdogs so that those *good* teams (or a good boxer like the fictional one you depicted) insidiously go, like sleepers, and surprise those who discounted them and therefore failed to adequately prepare for them. Yes, that's great.

Or else, when others hate a team and engage in wishful thinking, failing to acknowledge how *good* they are, and arrogantly dismiss them, just to end up with egg on their faces. Yes, that's great.

You are "loving it" that we've been suspecting that the Eagles will be one-and-done, but see, the problem is, we are not saying so for any of the above reasons. At least me, I am not. I don't hate the Eagles. I don't need to engage in wishful thinking against them. It's not that I'm failing to see how good they are, so that like sleepers they might surprise my team.

It's actually because we see that they are *pretty bad right now.* They lost their excellent quarterback and went from clear pretenders and actually favorites, to a dismal situation of getting a back-up, beating the awful Giants (who doesn't?) and then completely crumbling and falling apart (remember what happened to the Raiders when Carr got injured?).

So, you "love" the fact that people have *real reasons, logical reasons* to suspect your team of being *pretty bad* and most likely *accurately so*? What exactly is there to "love" about it? We are not failing to see how *good* the Eagles are. We are actually rather seeing how *bad* the Eagles are.

Do you think we are all misguided about how poorly the Eagles have been playing under Foles? Well, the thing is, chances are that we aren't misguided. We are just being accurate.

So, is it because you believe that this will bring extra motivation for the Eagles players to try and get highly motivated for the playoff game? Sorry to break the news to you, but independently of *any* of the above, *all* players from *all* teams are *highly* motivated to win a playoff game. That's what they strive all year for. That's what they are paid to do. That's what they aim for as the coronation of their careers. There *isn't* such a thing as a player who *isn't* motivated to do well in the playoffs so I hardly see what kind of advantage the Eagles would be getting from people *noticing* (again, likely, accurately) how bad they are right now.

So, if logic and cold analysis prevails and the Eagles indeed find themselves one-and-done, will you "love it"?

Because, I wouldn't. If *my* team were in the Eagles' situation, I wouldn't be "loving it." I'd be concerned and worried. I wouldn't stop supporting my team in bad times, of course, but I really fail to understand what exactly is "lovable" about one's team thoroughly falling apart once their leader and star player gets injured.

Sorry, but your *I love it* does sound to me like denial and wishful thinking. Again, I commend you for sticking with this fantasy, but I'm sorry to have to call it a fantasy.

Maybe the Eagles will prove us wrong and will give you a lot of satisfaction by winning one or more playoff games. If that happens, I'll be man enough to come back here and say "wow, I tip my hat to you; you were right and I was wrong; sorry if I gave you a hard time on the occasion of your accurate optimism."

But frankly, I think that the odds are that it is not going to happen. And I say so without holding any grudge whatsoever against the Eagles, a team I was greatly enjoying watching, while Wentz was still healthy. This is demonstrable. You can browse back to my posting history at the time of my "winners and losers" threads and see my comments about the Eagles, saying how much pleasure, as a football lover, they were giving me by simply watching Wentz' outstanding plays.

So, I was favorably predisposed to the Eagles when they were good. Currently I regret to think of them as a very bad, very lost, non-competitive team that is highly likely to be one-and-done in the playoffs, and if by some miracle they pull it off and win the first game (any given Sunday...), I find that it will be very unlikely for them to repeat the same lucky performance in their second play-off game.

In my prediction the odds that the Eagles will go to the Superbowl are comparable to those for the Titans and the Bills. That is, very, very small. Sorry, but it's what I sincerely think.