The Los Angeles Chargers, to kick off the five-game gauntlet that will ultimately determine their season, are set to face the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football in Week 14.
At the start of the season, this matchup might have seemed formidable and even, perhaps, unwinnable. Yet, with the way that the Eagles have struggled as of late to get their offense going, the Chargers could have a prime opportunity to capitalize on their opponent's ongoing issues and, in the process, position themselves exceptionally well to earn a Wild Card spot in the AFC.
Philadelphia has lost each of its last two games (to the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears), and, as a result, Los Angeles has hope to send the Eagles skidding even further out of the dominant territory they have become accustomed to over the past couple of seasons.
The Eagles' offense has struggled, and the Chargers' defense is (hopefully) on the rise
There's two sides to this coin, and both are worth genuinely evaluating.
After one of the most dominant seasons on both sides of the ball in recent memory, Philadelpha propelled themselves to a handy Super Bowl win over the Kansas City Chiefs. With much of the team returning for the 2025 campaign, it was hard to see how any team could be better than the Eagles this season.
Yet, that has not been the case, at least not on offense. Through the first 13 weeks of the season, Philadelphia is among the bottom ten teams in the NFL in both total yards and passing yards. They have the 11th-fewest rushing yards as a team, and, while they have held onto the ball well, they have not been able to convert sustained drives into scores, having the sixth-worst offensive score rate in the NFL.
They have not truly been able to establish the run game with Saquon Barkley to the impressive extent that they did last season (they totaled just 150 rushing yards between their last two games), and they have not been able to script plays to get the ball to their stars on a routine basis.
Simply put, this Eagles team, wherever you want to place the blame, is not the same machine as many expected it to be.
The Chargers' defense meanwhile, looks to be trending up after a dominant performance against the Raiders in Week 13. They allowed only 31 total rushing yards on the day, keeping Las Vegas's offense virtually inoperable for large swathes of the game.
While this did come after their shellacking at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars, perhaps the bye, and the return of their offense as a capable unit, has given the defense some additional motivation entering this last stretch of the season.
If the Chargers are able to pull out a win in Week 14, their chances at clinching a playoff spot would rise to 74% according to The Athletic NFL Playoff Simulator. Given the way that Philadelphia has played recently, this seems signficantly more possible than it did even a couple weeks ago.