Opinion Trax: NFL’s lack of judgment cost them Sunday night

On Sunday night, the Washington Football Team defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14 to win the NFC East and a date with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next Saturday in the Wild Card Game. Meanwhile, the Eagles now have the sixth overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

The game was close heading into the fourth quarter with the Eagles trailing 17-14. What fans and the media were baffled about was that Doug Pederson decided to put Nate Sudfeld in the game and not let Jalen Hurts finish the game.

Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth were all over this, along with Twitter. Eagles fans and sports reporters were calling the team out for tanking. Here are just a few of them calling the Eagles out.

This is a joke right?? — Brian Westbrook (@36westbrook) January 4, 2021

Chris Collinsworth finally implies the Eagles are tanking and rips them for it pic.twitter.com/RzwMpfzizr — gifdsports (@gifdsports) January 4, 2021

That was a mockery pic.twitter.com/llXwIiRDwt — Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) January 4, 2021

Eagle players committed and playing their butts off & the head coach is experimenting tonight. — Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) January 4, 2021

Did Doug Pederson put his life savings on the Washington money line? Only explanation for what we are seeing right now. — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 4, 2021

Before the game started, the Eagles had nine guys out with injuries. The Eagles had backups and practice squad guys playing with only a few starters in the game. The Eagles treated this game like a preseason game as they were eliminated from the playoffs last week. But before we go ahead and blame Doug and Howie, even though they should be blamed for this game and the season, the real blame should go to the NFL itself.

The NFL, out of all the other games, chose the Washington Football Team and the Philadelphia Eagles to close out the NFL season. They could’ve picked other games like Green Bay at Chicago, Pittsburgh at Cleveland, Miami at Buffalo, or Arizona at Los Angeles Rams. Those would’ve been better game options for Sunday night instead of this.

Maybe this is a good lesson for the NFL when it comes to picking the last Sunday night game of the year. Perhaps this signifies that there should be no more Sunday night games for Week 17 and let the season finish after the 4 pm games.

There was no need to put the Washington Football Team and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night when everyone knows that both teams are bad and one is luckily going to the playoffs just for winning the division. The media and the fans can blame the Eagles all they want, but they should point the blame at the lack of judgment by the NFL.

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