Haven't read the thread yet. Here's my take.
The Eagles have the most complete offense that the Patriots will have faced this year.
At WR, they have Agholor, Jeffrey, Smith and Hollins. All 4 are legitimate 6' +
At TE, they are 3 deep with Ertz, Celek, and Burton.
At RB, they have Ajayi, Blount, Clement and Barner. Ajayi ran for 5.8 YPC in his limited amount of time with the Eagles. And it was after Peters was gone.
Agholor, Jeffrey, Ertz and Burton accounted for 30 receiving TDs.
Though they lost All-Pro Jason Peters at LT, Vaitai has held his own there. Their O-line has allowed only 2 sacks on 63 passing attempts so far in the post-season.
They are going to present some very tough match-ups for the Patriots. Particularly with the size advantage they'll have over Butler. I wouldn't be surprised to see some double-moves from Torrey Smith or Jeffrey on the outside. Rowe scares me in this match-up, honestly.
Chung is going to have his hands full with Ertz as someone else mentioned. Ertz is only about a step behind Gronk in talent. I wouldn't be surprised if Chung draws an DPI or Two in this game because of Ertz.
The key for the Pats will be holding the Eagles run in check and forcing Foles to beat them with his arm. Which he CAN do. Hopefully, the Pats can force low % throws to help out the Corners and Chung.
The Pats offense, imho, is going to have to run a ton of plays and just tire out the Eagles Defense. I think they need to run 75-80+ offensive plays, much the way they did against Atlanta. Unfortunately, the Eagles limited Atlanta and Minn to a total of 103 combine..
The Pats offense does present some mismatches for the Eagles as well. The Pats only ran the ball 10 times against the Jags, which surprised many people. The main school of thought was for the Pats to run the ball down the Jags throats with Lewis and Burkhead and use that to open up the Passing game. It ended up being the reverse with the Pass opening up the run for Lewis to put the final nail in the coffin in the 4th quarter with that awesome 1st down run.
All eyes, will of course, be on Gronk's status. Concussions are tricky things. They can last a day, weeks, months or even years.
I'm not sure the Eagles DBs can hang with the Pats WRs long enough, though they did a good job against Keenum and his good Corps of receivers. That being said, Brady is not Keenum. And the Eagles D-line will have their hands full. Especially with how the Pats O-line has played very well. They did have some issues with the stunts and the late ILB blitz, but the Jags didn't use them enough. The Patriots nullifying the Eagles pass rush will allow Brady to pick apart the Eagles secondary more so than he does against other teams..
