As Águias não devem voar!  That’s Portuguese for “the Eagles must not fly.” 

Finally, with the end of all the off-season and pre-season jawboning, speculating and prognosticating, it’s time to focus on grounding the Birds on Friday in Brazil. 

The Eagles have been in transition ever since their breathtaking meltdown in the latter part of last season — after a 10-1 start — culminating in a humiliating loss to Tampa Bay in the wild card round of the playoffs. Everything that could go wrong did: Head Coach Nick Sirianni and QB Jalen Hurts reportedly stopped speaking to each other, the defense suddenly couldn’t stop anyone, Sirianni brought in the ridiculous Matt Patricia who made it worse, and opposing teams figured out that blitzing a banged-up Hurts effectively shut down Philadelphia’s offense, which had no answers.

Sirianni kept his job on the strength of the Eagles’ close loss to the Chiefs in the previous year’s Super Bowl, but big changes came elsewhere. Both coordinators were replaced, with Kellen Moore taking over the offense and Vic Fangio the D. Both are bringing new schemes. Meanwhile, the team lost its most important linemen to retirement on each side of the ball, center Jason Kelce and DT Fletcher Cox.  

The result is a bit of a mystery box for Matt Lafleur and his staff to puzzle through. Sirianni has ceded control of the offense to Moore, whose coordinator experience has been with pocket passers Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert. It will be interesting to see how Moore adjusts his scheme to mesh with Hurts, who when healthy has been one of the premier running quarterbacks in the league. Green Bay has long struggled against that type of offense, and can’t be sure what kind of hybrid they are going to see from Moore. The buzz in Philadelphia has been that after some early struggles adjusting to Moore’s approach, Hurts is feeling much more comfortable, as well as being healthy again. With Kelce gone, Hurts will also be setting protections at the line of scrimmage for the first time, putting an extra load on his pre-snap plate. 

Fangio’s system, widely emulated across the league as the best answer to limiting explosive plays, has lately been exposed by offenses happy to move down the field in smaller chunks, with heavy play-action and short-to-intermediate passing in the middle of the field. With two of the top college cornerbacks drafted in the first two rounds and a still strong (and massive) defensive front, it will be interesting to see what wrinkles Fangio introduces.

On the flip side, no one outside of 1265 Lombardi Ave. has a clue what new Packers’ DC Jeff Hafley’s defense will look like beyond being a more aggressive, downhill scheme than the Fangio-like system that Joe Barry favored. Hafley has never run an NFL defense, so there is no tape to rely on, a distinct advantage for Green Bay. As head coach at Boston College, he was the most frequent practitioner of single-high-safety defenses in all of Division I football, but he’ll need to modify that in the NFL. In any event, Moore and Sirianni have no idea how Hafley will attack them, nor do we, and this will be hella fun to watch.

These are two deeply talented rosters with young dynamic quarterbacks, D-line studs, top-flight receivers, strong lead running backs and solid secondaries. Neither has an obvious advantage, though the oddsmakers are favoring the Eagles by +/- 3 points.

The betting here is that the game will be decided by who can run the ball most effectively, and in turn by the performance of the offensive lines. The Eagles paid serious money for Saquon Barkley, who when healthy is still a beast. And he is healthy. Hafley's scheme prioritizes max pressure on the quarterback from all angles, but that approach will fizzle if Barkley goes off. This will be a big test for a middling linebacker  corps that will likely be missing 2nd round pick Edgerrin Cooper, who barely practiced during the preseason due to a hamstring injury. Even if he’s healthy, it’s hard to imagine letting Cooper play in his first NFL game with so little practice time. Quay Walker will have the green dot, and needs to have a big game. The Eagles will target the Green Bay linebackers as the weakest link, and even if Hafley regularly drops a safety down to help, Walker must perform up to his draft status or it will be a long day for the Packers.  

Similarly, the Packers offensive line will need to spring some holes for Josh Jacobs and Emanuel Wilson, which happened too infrequently in the preseason. This is a line more suited to pass protection, but it can do some damage in space. When healthy, Jacobs is a multi-dimensional playmaker, and it would not surprise me to see him getting several targets as a pass-catcher. He’ll also likely get a lot of touches overall, given how thin the Packers are at running back after losing AJ Dillon. Wilson should have plenty of chances to make his mark in this game, especially since we’re unlikely to see much of rookie MarShawn Lloyd, if at all. If the run game can get going early, a lot will open up for Love and his bevy of receivers. It will also be intriguing to see how often LaFleur puts Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft on the field at the same time, to help with run support if nothing else.

Another key will be how the Packers deal with the trio of A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and new addition Jahan Dotson. Jaire Alexander and Eric Stokes will be tested, as will the new safety group led by Xavier McKinney.

Lastly, elements of surprise and creativity should loom large. With both teams bringing new approaches and with little tape to go by, the Packers should lean in with as much trickeration and diversity of play calling as possible to try to keep the Eagles off balance. Philadelphia will likely do the same. The Eagles pioneered the Tush Push, and I expect to see something unusual from them in the return game in light of the new kickoff rules. Meanwhile, the Packers, and the rest of us, will be happy if new kicker Brayden Narveson is simply up to the task. 

In addition to being historic for its locale, this game should be a great one.  #GPG.