WOULD RATHER BE IN CLEARWATER
Prime time has not exactly been the right time for the Eagles, at least when it comes to Sunday nights.
The Birds are 0-7 on NBC since the network took over the Sunday night package. That includes the loss to the Cowboys two weeks ago.
On his radio show this week, Eagles coach Andy Reid discounted any tie-in to playing on Sunday nights, dismissing the trend and saying the team just had to worry about the next game.
But, on the other side of the field, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler has been awful in the team’s three night games. In those three games, Cutler is 73-for-131 (.557 completion percentage) with three touchdowns and a whopping 11 interceptions. That includes the five against San Francisco last Thursday night. His prime-time passer rating is 49.3. In five day games, Cutler is 138-for-207, with 11 touchdowns and six interceptions for a passer rating of 92.8.
Other than Sunday nights, the Eagles have won in night games, including the win over Washington on Monday Night Football. At one point in the Andy Reid Era, night games were almost automatic W's.
The Birds won 10 straight night games from 2000 to the 2002 season, including a playoff game, and then won six of eight in 2003 and 2004. One of those losses was to Tampa Bay to open the Linc.
Since then, they are 5-14, including a playoff game, but have won three of four, including last season's Thanksgiving win over Arizona, a Monday night win over Cleveland and the Monday night win over Washington this season.
There is no way to know for sure if there is anything beyond the numbers here. One thought is that the networks are trying to put the best matchups in prime time, so the Eagles are playing the tougher games on their schedule in these situations. NFC East games have been a staple of the prime-time schedule.
For the Eagles' sake, though, they hopefully can stop the trend and hope Cutler's trend continues, or the season could be slipping away.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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