Trusted NFL voice highlights significant Eagles scheduling detail

It’s one of those things that we often neglect to highlight, but it’s a much more important detail than we give it credit for being. The dates at times in which the Philadelphia Eagles are scheduled to play teams are just as important as who they’re playing.

Now, some will read that and diminish the theory by making statements like ‘there are no excuses’ and ‘these guys are professionals’. No one would be wrong for saying such. That’s what we’ve grown to appreciate from our favorite players as well, that ‘just tell me where to show up and play, and I’ll be ready’ mindset. Something has to be noted, however.

The Eagles may have been dealt a slightly bad hand by the NFL for this one.

If you don’t think there’s some level of difficulty in playing a game on Sunday for instance and then gearing up to get ready for another four days later, you’re fooling yourselves. That’s a tall ask for any professional football star, even if they’d never admit it. Can you imagine what that means for those that are battling injuries?

Sure, we understand that every NFL franchise plays in a required Thursday night game and that also ensures said team will get a nine-day break between that tilt and the next. There’s something we noticed at the release of the NFL’s full 2022-2023 regular-season schedule, however (and we’re sure you saw it too).

Peter King, in his weekly Football Morning In America column, discussed an obvious scheduling detail (or four) that are worth making mental notes of.

"As schedulemeister Warren Sharp points out, while 21 teams play either zero or one short-week road game, the Eagles play four: Week 3 in Washington coming off of a Monday night home game; Week 9 in Houston on Thursday night off of a Sunday home game; Week 11 in Indianapolis off a Monday night home game; and Week 16 in Dallas on a Saturday afternoon off of a Sunday road game (to be fair, most teams in Week 16 have a short-week game because 12 games are slated to be played Thursday/Saturday that week)."

Though no one should ‘count chickens before they hatch’ as some might say or, from an NFL paradigm, put checks in the win column before games are played, let’s be honest. A prognosticator lives in all of us.

We’ve all looked at the Eagles’ schedule 20 times and picked out what the games will provide us with the wins and the losses. Some may even go so far as to say the 2022-2023 regular-season schedule is ‘easier’ than the gauntlet they undertook a year ago. Games versus the Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars would speak to that theory, but on that note, let’s throw one more talking point into the discussion.

Games versus the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers, and Tennessee Titans in consecutive weeks will highlight perhaps Philadelphia’s toughest stretch of the season, but if the Eagles are looking for a successful campaign, they’ll need to be mentally tough to battle through four ‘short weeks’.

They’ll say ‘just tell us where to be and we’ll be there’, but it will be intriguing to see how those games go. Make sure they’re circled on your calendars.