The Philadelphia Eagles have been wildly inconsistent for most of their first three games. Eagles fans like myself might argue that they've been more bad than good this year, but their 2-1 record still argues that there's good somewhere. Yet Philadelphia has been both good and awful at various points through the first three weeks of the year - although that can be said about almost every team in the NFL.
Not only have the Eagles been inconsistent from week to week this month, so has virtually the rest of the league. This is evident by how there are only three unbeaten and two winless clubs left, even though it is only the end of September.
Despite how parity tends to reign in the NFL, there are usually at least one or two really dominant teams that stand out for most of the year. But that's not the case so far, with the Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers at 1-2, and with winning teams like the Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers having already suffered ugly losses.
The only consistently successful teams have been the unbeaten Houston Texans, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals - no one's idea of the last three undefeated franchises left a month ago. Even the Texans and Falcons nearly blew big second-half leads to the Denver Broncos, while the Cardinals got pretty lucky to win their first two games.
Meanwhile, only the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns have been consistently awful so far this month. Yet even the Browns have put up a good fight on occasion, as they even took the Baltimore Ravens to the final play before losing on Sept. 27. The Saints have had no such silver linings to cling to, as they haven't for much of 2012 in general.
Other than that, the entire NFL is made up of teams that can be brilliant and awful at any given moment. That is often the case anyway, yet it usually hasn't been this extreme. Right now, it seems there are no teams like last year's Packers or Patriots, who will roll through the regular season while everyone else stumbles once in a while.
This is good news for the Eagles if they ever get their act together, at least before most other teams do. Most of the NFL is suffering through wild mood swings early on, but whoever settles down and becomes consistently hot first should be the Super Bowl favorite. And at this point, the Eagles and virtually everyone else have as good a shot to do that as anyone.
Robert Dougherty is a life-long Philadelphia resident who has followed the Eagles since he was eight years old.
Other stories by this contributor
Eagles left relatively unscathed by replacement referee era
Eagles, Giants now only have to worry about rusty officials
Eagles need Vick to get off hot seat once again
Eagles, Giants on track to be latest victims of primetime referees
Will it take extreme scenarios like a players strike to end referee lockout?
