PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The NFL champs are in town. Philly hockey is back. And maybe Ben Simmons is back too? (That last one is anyone's guess.)
Here are a handful of games to watch over the next week in Philadelphia sports.
Philadelphia Eagles vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Thursday at 8:20 p.m.
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles are back in primetime. Hopefully for the Birds, it will go better than their Monday night mess in Dallas a few games back.
The world champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in town for the seventh overall official matchup Tom Brady will have against the Eagles. He is 4-2 in the previous six, with one of those losses -- of course -- being in Super Bowl LII. However, Brady is 3-0 at The Linc.
"[Eagles fans] do a good job," Brady said this week. "They love their team. Played there quite a few times over the years, and it's a great football stadium. It will be a fun game Thursday night."
The Eagles may be without one of their key tight ends Thursday night. NFL Network reported Tuesday that Dallas Goedert is on the COVID-19 list, but he is vaccinated, so he needs two negative tests in a row 24 hours apart to play. That might be difficult, considering the game is Thursday night
Merrill Reese, the Voice of the Eagles, says that's a shame, "because Goedert is a big part of this offense that has made some clutch plays."
Monday Night Football in Week Three wasn't fun for Hurts in a bad loss to the Cowboys. Since then, the second-year quarterback had an impressive performance while falling to the Chiefs and a so-so outing in their comeback win in Carolina. Tonight is another chance for him and the team to showcase themselves on the national stage.
Related
"[Thursday night] is the next opportunity," Hurts said, "and I'm grateful for it and I'm looking forward to the next opportunity being this week -- the next game. You just wanna go out there and win regardless of, you know, a million people watching or one person watching, you know, nobody watching. We just wanna go out there and win the game."
It's a quick turnaround for both teams having just played on Sunday, but maybe the Eagles can somehow take advantage of the fact Brady is playing with an injured right thumb.
Philadelphia 76ers vs. New Orleans Pelicans, Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 8 p.m.
One of the massive stories this week in Philadelphia sports was Ben Simmons reporting to the Sixers after holding out and hoping for a trade.
Related
What happens going forward in this saga remains to be seen, but we do know that the team's preseason finale is Friday night in Detroit at 7 p.m. and then their season officially begins on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at the New Orleans Pelicans.
Philadelphia Flyers vs. Vancouver Canucks, Friday at 7 p.m.
Will the Flyers finally end their 46-year Stanley Cup Title drought? The first step would be making the postseason, which has been an every-other-year occurrence for the past nine seasons.
"We're a playoff team," head coach Alain Vigneault said. "[President of Hockey Operations] Chuck [Fletcher] has made some real good changes to our team. And again, I don't want to take anything away from the players that were here before, but sometimes you've gotta change the dynamics, and the dynamics have been changed."
Longtime Flyers Jake Voracek and Shayne Gostisbehere were moved in the offseason, and new guys including Cam Atkinson, Ryan Ellis and Rasmus Ristolainen were brought in to help Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Carter Hart and the rest of the Flyers after a disappointing 2021 season.
If the Flyers do miss the postseason in 2022, it will be the first time since 1994 that they missed it in consecutive seasons.
Related
Vigneault said the team's first goal is to make the playoffs and do so against challenging competition.
"All in all, this group is coming together," Vigneault said. "It needs to improve, and it will improve and we're gonna get our first goal which is to get in the playoffs and the fight for that starts Friday."
The Flyers begin the season with a four-game homestand. After Friday, they host the expansion Seattle Kraken on Monday, Boston Bruins on Wednesday and Florida Panthers next Saturday, Oct. 23.