Are you ready for some football?
The Eagles better be because on Thursday, just four days after they lost their fifth straight game, they have to play football again.
The Giants, who have won eight of their last nine and are in the thick of the NFC playoff race, come to the Linc for a national TV Thursday night game.
A short week is tough on anybody. It's got to be even tougher for a team that's won two games since September and has been eliminated from playoff contention.
Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, for one, isn’t a fan of Thursday night games and said the league needs to re-think the way it makes teams play on such a short week.
“I think you eliminate a preseason game and you add a little mini-bye for Thursday games,” Ertz said after the Eagles lost to the Ravens Sunday.
“I mean, they want to do Thursday games, I think the way to approach it, add a little 10-day bye between a Sunday and a Thursday game. And then another 10 days after that.
“If they want to play Thursday games, it's obviously tough. Guys have to start recovering right now (Sunday night). A lot of guys hit the cold tub already (after the game). Hit the tub and then when we get back, I'll do the same.
“It's tough, but the Giants gotta do it too. Everyone's gotta do it in the league and we're excited for Thursday.”
This is the seventh straight year the Eagles have had a Thursday night game, including Thanksgiving in Dallas in 2014 — the high point of Chip Kelly’s Eagles career — and Thanksgiving in Detroit in 2015, maybe the low point of Kelly’s Eagles career.
Their last home Thursday night game was their 2013 loss to Andy Reid’s Chiefs.
Overall, they’re 10-5 on Thursdays, going back to a 7-0 win over the Steelers on a Thursday at Shibe Park in 1940.
The Giants beat the Redskins on Thursday nights early in both the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The Eagles and Giants have never met on a Thursday in a series that dates back to 1933.
The Eagles-Giants kickoff at the Linc Thursday features two teams headed in opposite directions.
Six games into the season, the Eagles were 4-2 and the Giants were 3-3. Since then, the Eagles are 1-7 and the Giants are 7-1. The Giants beat the Eagles 28-23 in East Rutherford in early November.
Overall, the Eagles have won 13 of the last 17 games against the Giants going back to 2008.
For Doug Pederson, Thursday night games are nothing new. He was a part of four of them as a player and six as a coach.
As a player, Pederson was with the Dolphins backing up Steve DeBerg in 1993 when they beat the Cowboys 16-14 in a Thursday night game at Texas Stadium in 1993, and with the Packers backing up Brett Favre for Thanksgiving games against the Lions at the Silverdome in 1998, 2001 and 2003.
As a coach under Reid here, Pederson was part of Thursday night games in 2010 against the Texans (34-24 win), 2011 in Seattle (31-14 loss) and 2012 against the Bengals (34-13 loss). With Reid in Kansas City, he was part of that win against the Eagles in 2013, a loss to the Raiders in Oakland in 2014 and a loss to the Broncos in K.C. last year.
For Carson Wentz, the rookie quarterback, this is uncharted waters.
“We need to move on from this as quickly as we can, and we need to start getting ready for the Giants right away,” he said. “This is my first Thursday game, so it’s a new experience for me.”
