4 Philadelphia Eagles Starters Who Will Hurt the Team's Super Bowl Chances

In the NFL, it's almost impossible to field a roster without any holes. There are 32 teams, each of which start 22 players on offense and defense. That's 704 Opening Day starters—there just aren't that many starting-caliber players in the league.

Inevitably, each team—even the ones with Super Bowl aspirations, like our Eagles—have to put below-average players in important spots and hope for the best; hope that the quality players surrounding them can mask their flaws long enough to hoist the Lombardi trophy.

While having four subpar starters may initially seem insignificant, some advanced calculations (four divided by 22) show that they make up almost 20 percent of the starters on offense and defense. That's a little disheartening. Here are the four Eagles starters who make us hope that a chain isn't only as strong as its weakest link.

LG Evan Mathis

Let me try to put this nicely: If you couldn't start for the 2010 Bengals, then you probably shouldn't start for the 2011 Eagles.

Todd Herremans' switch to right tackle and Mathis' subsequent promotion to starting left guard are signs from the Eagles coaching staff that they are just as worried about the offensive line as the fans are.

Mathis is an improvement in the starting unit, but that's only because King Dunlap has the mobility of a statue. In order to protect Michael Vick's blind side, the team decided to sacrifice its dominant left side of the line.

Mathis is a veteran who won't make any rookie mistakes (we'll get to his fellow guard later), but he won't be clearing out Herremans-sized holes on the left side for LeSean McCoy to run through, either.

ILB Casey Matthews

This is neither an indictment on Matthews' play thus far, nor a declaration that he won't eventually be a viable starter. This is simply a realistic confession. Casey Matthews isn't yet capable of doing what the Eagles need from their middle linebacker.

The middle linebacker is the heart of the defense. He calls the plays. He makes pre-snap changes. He's responsible for knowing the schematics of football inside and out. I don't care who his dad, uncle or brother was—he hasn't been around long enough to do this at a Super Bowl level.

With a stronger core of linebackers around him, the Eagles would be able to provide him with some more breathing room. As it stands now, every rookie mistake he commits could be a fatal one.

SS Nate Allen

Yikes. That Steelers game was painful to watch. While most of the postgame blame went to the aforementioned Matthews, it was really Allen's poor coverage skills that made our secondary look like swiss cheese.

Allen had a fine rookie season prior to his injury, but at Heinz field he didn't look like the same player. His knee is clearly still bothering him. The Eagles gave him the night off against Cleveland—inserting Jarrad Page into the starting lineup—but he's still slated to start the opener in St. Louis.

Teams who watched tape of the Steelers game are going to be throwing at him early and often, so he needs to heal to quickly.

RG Danny Watkins

Combined with the aforementioned Mathis, Watkins makes up part of one of the league's weakest pair of guards. Normally, that wouldn't be too big of a problem—the Eagles never really liked running up the middle anyway. However, Watkins showed against Cleveland that his incompetence could also hinder the passing game—and maybe get Michael Vick killed in the process.

The Eagles drafted the 26-year-old from Baylor, in spite of his age, because they thought he was the most NFL-ready lineman in the draft. And while he's shown flashes of living up to that promise, he's also made mistakes that 22-year-old rookies usually make. Not the mistakes 26-year-olds make. Not the mistakes that quality starters make.

It may be unfair to hold Watkins to a higher standard since he's only a rookie, but the Eagles took him with the intention of playing him right away. They're going to stick to their guns on that one, and Watkins might really make them pay the price for their confidence.