The Eagles are the outliers in the NFC playoffs. They should play like it. | Mike Sielski

The 2021-22 Eagles might be the ideal Philadelphia team.

The last thing that this city’s fans like or enjoy or relish is expectations. It’s the worst word or term or name in this town when it comes to professional sports. Worse than choking situation or run-pass ratio or burner account. Worse than Joe Carter or Leon Stickle or Ronde Barber. Worse than Black Friday or quadruple doink or … Dallas.

In Philadelphia, expectations means the 2011 Phillies. And the 2002 Eagles. And the Eric Lindros Flyers. And the Embiid-Simmons 76ers. It means the last game at Veterans Stadium and a quick seven-point lead. It means Game 5 at Citizens Bank Park and Roy Halladay down a run and an uneasiness in the air. It means a team here is supposed to win, supposed to chase down glory, supposed to validate everyone’s hopes and dreams and passion and support … and generally fails to do so. In Philadelphia, expectations has four letters.

Which is why people around here should have no trouble wrapping their arms around the Eagles ahead of next weekend’s slate of NFL wild-card games. The Eagles are the outliers in this year’s NFC playoffs. Ahead of Sunday, they were the only team in either conference to qualify for the postseason without having beaten a team with a winning record. If it’s damning them with faint praise to say that, because they had such a cupcake-heavy schedule, and they could only play and beat the opponents in front of them, then a perusal of the rest of the NFC field gives you a good idea of just how odd it is, and how much of a relative achievement it is, that the Eagles made the playoffs at all.

Just look at the head coach-quarterback combinations at the core of each NFC team. All of them are more accomplished, are more highly touted, or have more pressure on them than Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts do.

» READ MORE: Of course Jalen Hurts can win a Super Bowl

The Packers have Aaron Rodgers, who could very well be the league’s MVP this season and is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, and Matt LaFleur, who hasn’t won fewer than 13 games in any of his three seasons as a head coach.

The Buccaneers have Tom Brady, who could very well be the league’s MVP this season and is less-arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, and Bruce Arians, who has a .621 winning percentage. Oh, and Tampa is the defending Super Bowl champion and the Eagles’ opponent in the wild-card round.

The Rams have Matthew Stafford, who has been one of the NFL’s most dynamic and productive quarterbacks over his 13-year career but has never won a playoff game, and Sean McVay, lauded as a wunderkind but still looking for his first Super Bowl victory.

The Cowboys have Dak Prescott, who is an excellent quarterback and is universally regarded as a terrific leader but who won just one playoff game in his first five seasons, and Mike McCarthy, who won a Super Bowl with the Packers but is widely (and correctly) perceived to have been carried there by Rodgers.

The Cardinals have Kyler Murray, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft, and Kliff Kingsbury, who is 42 years old, in his third season as an NFL head coach, and still trying to prove he’s something more than a diet/decaf version of McVay.

Even the two teams who, entering Sunday, were still vying for the NFC’s final playoff spot, the 49ers and the Saints, have better coach/QB pedigrees than the Eagles. Jimmy Garoppolo, Kyle Shanahan, and the Niners represented the NFC in the Super Bowl just two years ago. And the Saints finished 9-8 this season despite having four different quarterbacks start at least one game for them — a reaffirmation of Sean Payton’s standing as one of the league’s top coaches.

Every NFC playoff team would regard a playoff loss to the Eagles as a major disappointment — and as a major surprise. Let’s face it: Just about everyone would regard it as a major surprise if the Eagles won a playoff game. Except, of course, the Eagles themselves. They’re playing with house money. They should be loose. They should be relaxed. They should be willing to be daring in their strategy and decision-making.

“What’s that saying? ‘We didn’t come this far to only come this far,’” Sirianni said. “So let’s make sure we’re locked into what put us in this position in the first place: detail in meetings starting with the coaches going to the players, full speed in walk-through to the snap, and then high intensity at practice and just try to get a little bit better each day to put ourselves in position to go 1-0 this week.”

Sirianni, Hurts, and the Eagles have less to lose than any other team in the tournament. Less was expected of them this season, and less is expected of them now, and that has to be a freeing feeling for them. It should be. No doubt, it will be for anyone who’s rooting for them.