It Should've Been a Forfeit or a Play-On
PHILADELPHIA – If the Eagles ever wanted to show that they are a better team when playing on Tuesday night than what they showed 11 years ago, well, now’s the time.
It didn’t go so well for them the last time they played on Tuesday night, on Dec. 28, 2010. A snowstorm in Philadelphia forced the NFL to push the Eagles’ game against the Vikings back until Tuesday.
More on that later.
This was no act of Mother Nature that forced the rescheduling of three games this weekend.
The was a pandemic that had appeared to flame out but has, suddenly, returned.
So, the NFL took mercy on three teams that couldn’t take care of their own business when it came time to stay free of COVID-19.
The Browns, the Rams, and Washington threw themselves on the mercy of the league court and were granted leniency after having a quarter of their rosters test positive for the virus.
The Eagles, of course, aren’t happy at all with the decision to move their game against the Football Team from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday night.
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And they shouldn't be. They played by the rules, and Washington did not, unable to contain an outbreak that forced them to put 21 players on the virus list this week.
Now, because of the WFT’s careless and reckless behavior, the Eagles will have to turn around and play the New York Giants in five days.
This was their only stretch of two straight home games all season and now they will be played in less than a full week.
Yes, the Football Team, has a game in five days, but they are the ones who created the mess, a mess we should have seen coming from them back in the summer when their coach Ron Rivera, a cancer survivor, was irate when most of his roster refused to get vaccinated.
They had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the league then and maybe now, too. There’s no way of knowing, and, while vaccinated players can have positive tests, it just seems like more than a coincidence that Washington is one of the Covid offenders.
They, along with the Rams and Browns, should have been made to play the hand they were dealt or forfeit. The NFL, after all, was fine last year making the Broncos play with a practice squad receiver at quarterback after Denver’s three QBs tested positive for COVID.
This is a slippery slope for the league. What happens if one of the teams that were forced to adjust their schedules despite not doing anything wrong suddenly has an outbreak of positive tests on Monday?
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Eagles players were quick to react on Twitter.
“LOL” tweeted LB Alex Singleton.
“That’s crazy…we play Tuesday night then turn right around and play Sunday!! No Days off. Double up on massages this week,” CB Darius Slay tweeted.
“So we have to suffer, and compromise our schedule because of another teams mistake. Make it make sense,” tweeted S Rodney McLeod.
So now here are the Eagles, waiting to play on Tuesday night. Again.
There have only been three Tuesday night games in the NFL since 1946, and the Eagles will have been involved in two of them.
The other was last year when the pandemic was really raging, and the Bills and Titans played on Tuesday.
Then there was the Joe Webb game. The backup Vikings QB beat a 10-5 Eagles team that was still in the chase for a playoff bye. It really wasn’t Webb that beat them.
It was a game that really could have been labeled the Adrian Peterson game, since the RB ran for 118 in a 24-14 win. Or even better, the Michael Vick game, because the Eagles QB turned the ball over three times, including two fumbles, one of which was returned 45 yards for a TD by Antoine Winfield.
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Five days later, they lost again, 14-13, to the Cowboys and found themselves in a wildcard playoff game, which they promptly lost to the Green Bay Packers.
So, like it or not, now is the chance to prove that the Eagles can be Tuesday night players, that they can win on five days rest, and not let this NFL malfeasance send them spiraling into a losing streak that would cost them a wildcard playoff berth.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
