Playoff History Not on Eagles Side as Buccaneers Await in Wild Card

The Philadelphia Eagles enter the postseason as the No. 5 seed, and there hasn't been much long-term survival in the postseason at that position.

PHILADELPHIA – Players say they can sense the urgency. It’s in the weight room, in meetings, and on the practice field. It’s all over the training facility.

“They know what’s at stake,” said Brandon Graham. “They know that we get another chance at it, and we know that we don’t have a lot of people believing in us, so that’s even better. It’s on us. Our best is yet to come right now.”

Well, it better be, because there are no more tomorrow’s if the Philadelphia Eagles lose Monday night in Tampa against the Buccaneers to close out the Wild Card round.

Other teams who entered the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, which the Eagles are after tumbling from the mountaintop over the past six weeks, surely had urgency, too. It didn’t help.

DeVonta Smith suffered an ankle sprain late in the Philadelphia Eagles' New Year's Eve loss to the Arizona Cardinals, but will play Monday night in Tampa after missing Week 18 / USA Today

Since 1990, just two teams have entered the playoffs as the No. 5 seed and gone on to win the Super Bowl — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 and the New York Giants in 2007.

One of the game’s greatest quarterbacks, Tom Brady, was with the Bucs in 2020, beating Washington, Green Bay, and the Giants had Eli Manning and a ferocious defense led by Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, and Antonio Pierce.

The Eagles don’t have Brady or Manning or even a defense that has been mostly toothless since Matt Patricia took over.

It’s a deck that looks stacked against Philly, to say the least.

Just seven teams won the Super Bowl after qualifying for the postseason as a wildcard.

In addition to the Bucs and Giants, the other five were:

1980 Oakland Raiders, No. 4 seed: 27-10 over the Eagles in Super Bowl 15

1997 Denver Broncos, No. 4 seed: 31-24 over the Packers in Super Bowl 32

2000 Baltimore Ravens, No. 4 seed: 34-7 over the Giants in Super Bowl 35

2005 Pittsburgh Steelers, No. 6 seed: 21-10 over the Seahawks in Super Bowl 40

2010 Green Bay Packers, No. 6 seed: 31-25 over the Steelers in Super Bowl 45

A.J. Brown, Where Are You?

Four wildcard teams made the Super Bowl but lost. They were:

1975 Dallas Cowboys, No. 4 seed: 21-17 to Steelers in Super Bowl 10

1985 New England Patriots, No. 5 seed: 46-10 to Bears in Super Bowl 20

1992 Buffalo Bills, No. 4 seed: 52-17 to Cowboys in Super Bowl 27

1999 Tennessee Titans, No. 4 seed: 23-16 to Rams in Super Bowl 34

“We have to continue to keep grinding this thing,” said Fletcher Cox. “We know the best teams are still playing football right now, so we have to keep on keeping on, and why not us?”