Soaring Eagles

Even as the victories piled up for the Philadelphia Eagles, there were reasons to have a few slivers of doubt. Or, at the very least, to wonder if they could maintain this level of play, a level that makes them the NFL’s best and most complete team.

Wonder no longer. The Eagles are very, very good. In an NFL season with a dearth of dominant teams, they might be closest thing that there is to one. They are the league’s No. 1 team and second-year quarterback  Carson Wentz is the MVP by a whisker over his, shall we say, slightly more accomplished New England Patriots counterpart, Tom Brady.

“We worked hard to be in this position and we earned it,” wide receiver Torrey Smith said in the home locker room at Lincoln Financial Field after the Eagles upped their league-best record to 8-1 with Sunday’s 51-23 demolishing of the Denver Broncos. “And it’s just that: We’re 8-1 right now. We still have a long way to go, a lot of work to put in and a lot of games to play. But we’re in a good spot right now.”

Indeed they are. But Smith also was a voice of experience and reason.

“We haven’t arrived,” he said. “I’ve been around this league long enough to know that things change quick. It’s possible we could lose seven games in a row and you miss the playoffs. So for us, we’ll take it one game at a time. We know how hard we work and we know what we’re capable of talent-wise.”

The Eagles showed their balance Sunday. Wentz threw four touchdown passes. The running game produced 197 rushing yards. The defense harassed Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler into three sacks and two interceptions.

“I don’t think any of us anticipated coming in and the score to be what it was,” Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins said. “We knew that we could have some success and that offensively, we weren’t going to shy away from their [defensive] front. We were going to try to attack them. . . . That complementary football really makes it hard on teams that don’t have the same balance that we do.”

Few saw this coming. The Eagles were 7-9 last season under Wentz and rookie head coach Doug Pederson. Finishing above .500 this season would have qualified as progress. The season began with Pederson facing not only criticism but also speculation that his defensive coordinator, Jim Schwartz, could be after his job. Pederson and Schwartz dismissed such talk, and Jenkins credits Pederson for forging a partnership with his players.

“I think he’s doing a great job of demanding and allowing for players to have ownership of what we’re doing,” Jenkins said. “It’s not necessarily what he’s making us do. We all feel like this is our thing. We have input. He listens to the players. We’re listening to him. And we’re building this together. We’re building the kind of atmosphere that we always talk about. But he actually allows that to grow. For a young coach in this league, that’s usually the thing that comes last is to have this much faith and trust in the players and the leadership. But I think it’s given us an opportunity to really build a culture.”

Wentz has developed into an honest-to-goodness superstar. The Eagles traded up for the No. 2 overall choice in last year’s draft to get him, then made him an immediate starter by trading away Sam Bradford just before last season. Last year brought its ups and downs for both Pederson and Wentz.But now Wentz has 23 touchdown passes, five interceptions and a passer rating of 104.1. He is an improvisational master when plays break down. His teammates seem to like and respect him. The MVP conversation should begin and end, at least for now, with Wentz and Brady.