Could Jay Ajayi's injury pave the way for the Eagles and Le & Ve Bell's trade? How RB affects the playoff probabilities



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The Eagles had a lot of bad luck at the start of the 2018 NFL season, with a 2-3 record to start the year and now losing their starting half, with Jay Ajayi reserve wounded by a torn LCA suffered against the Vikings on Sunday.

He leaves Philly in a precarious position – he finds himself in the middle of an Eastern NFC is crowded and populated with Wendell Smallwood and Corey Clement only in the half-defender position. So, why not avoid going home by going big? The eagles have a potential replacement there in the form of The Vein Bell.

The Steelers offensive midfielder is in the middle of an attack, but the team made it clear that they would like to exchange it. Part of the problem is that they need an offensive team that is trying to hurt themselves and is willing to sacrifice a choice (probably a third round pick at this point) in order to try to push in the playoffs. The Eagles are one of the few teams to find their place: they could find a way to get Bell signed if they want to, or just drop a third to pursue another title.

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For the sake of curiosity, Stephen Oh of SportsLine, who appears once a week on the Pick Six podcast, details the statistics you need to know about fantasy and play, Subscribe here – we had projections to see how much the loss of Ajayi was hurting the Eagles and how much the addition of Bell would help Philly.

And the results were quite shocking. With the loss of Ajayi, the Eagles' chances of winning the NFC East went from 34.3% to 29%. Their average total number of wins went from 8.4 wins to 8.1 wins and they moved from sixth to seventh place in SportsLine's NFC playoff screenings. It's huge – it's the difference between taking and missing the playoffs

Doing the big wrong and negotiating for Bell would have an even bigger impact in the opposite, "about as much as the rollback can have." According to SportsLine forecasts, the addition of Bell would take the Eagles from 8.1 to 9.2 and their chances of winning the division by 29% to 50.5%. Their chances of participating in the playoffs would increase from 41.5% to 67%.

The Eagles went from a 2.6 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl to 5.0 percent to win the title again.

Eagles with Jay Ajayi

8.4

6th

34.3%

47.9%

2.6%

Eagles without Jay Ajayi

8.1

7th

29.0%

41.5%

2.2%

Eagles with The Veon Bell

9.2

4th

50.5%

67.0%

5.0%

In other words, if you trust the projections and Bell to play with the level we are used to, it would be a smart Eagles game.

There is still so much to understand here, of course. The Steelers do not really know when Bell will report, and Bell should be ready to play for the Eagles on the franchise label (or see if Philly would adjust his salary for the 2018 season). The Eagles might not want to give up a third-round pick for a half-defender who is unlikely to be longer than a few months.

To trade for Bell and miss the playoffs would be an abject disaster. But if it's clear that Bell may be enough to push them over, it's worth trying to put their chips in the middle.

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