The Philadelphia Eagles need to get ready for primetime

Heading into the 2021 NFL season, no one really expected much for the Philadelphia Eagles.

They were coming off a fourth-place schedule that resulted in the sixth overall pick and Super Bowl championship-winning head coach Doug Pederson being fired, and the NFL clearly wasn’t too high on a quick turnaround, as even after the hiring of Nick Sirianni and the drafting of DeVonta Smith, the Birds were only awarded two primetime games when the season was announced, a Week 8 bout against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that went pretty poorly, and a Week 3 bout against Dallas that went even worse.

With the forthcoming season rapidly approaching, let’s just say the NFL is a bit more hawkish about the Eagles’ prospects in Year 2 of the Sirianni era, as they have five games scheduled for primetime this fall, with the potential for more at the end of the season should Philly’s race with Dallas for the top spot in the NFC East come down to the wire.

Are the Philadelphia Eagles ready for primetime? Well, they’d better be, because they’ll be playing in it whether they like it or not.

The NFL actually thinks the Philadelphia Eagles have a chance to be good.

When the Philadelphia Eagles take Lincoln Financial Field for their first home game of the 2022 NFL season, it’ll be on Sunday Night Football.

That’s right, while nothing beats a morning of tailgating just off of Broad ahead of an afternoon game, fans will get to spend the entire day walking through parking lots like a midnight green Vans Warped Tour before finally taking their seats to see the Eagles take on the Minnesota Vikings in their third contest since that fateful NFC Championship game that punched Philly’s first trip to the Super Bowl since January of 2005, at the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, no less.

Sounds fun, right? But wait, it gets better; the Eagles’ next primetime game comes on 10/16, marking the second-straight season where Dallas Week Pt.1 will take place after 8 pm EST. Another extended tailgating excursion and another opportunity for fans to get fully prepared for what many consider the game of the season.

From there, the Eagles become the primetime team over the month of November. They start things off with an after-dark – at least in Pennsylvania – showdown versus the Texans in Jalen Hurts‘ homecoming game, then have a Bye, then take on Carson Wentz and the Washington Commanders at home, on primetime, again, before an afternoon bout against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 11 that leads into, you guessed it, a primetime bout against the Green Bay Packers in South Philly once more.

Goodness gracious, Jeffrey Lurie better get a job fair ready for the Eagles this fall, as he’s going to need to hire a legion of parking lot attendants to keep everything on the straight and narrow.

Will the NFL regret putting 27.7 percent of the Philadelphia Eagles’ games on primetime? Only time will tell; Philly certainly dropped the ball on primetime last season and have at least two games scheduled for this season that look pretty darn challenging, to say the least. Tentatively, going 3-2 on primetime feels attainable and like a solid outcome in what looks primed to become Philly’s first 10-plus win season since 2017.