Ian Eagle, the play-by-play analyst of Westwood One’s coverage for Thursday Night Football, joins the Hoffman Show to preview Thursday night’s game between the Commanders and Bears at FedEx Field.
Craig Hoffman starts off the conversation by asking his question of the day: Who benefits more from the short week: Washington - the more talented team - or Chicago - the winless team with nothing to lose?
"I think Thursday nights can be very goofy," Eagle told Hoffman. "And when you're trying to figure out a trend that has developed over years and years and years, it doesn't necessarily work with Thursday Night Football. How certain teams handle the quick turnaround, what happened the week before was it a physical game, were you disappointed at the end and now you don't have as much time to really soak it in and turn the page? So you're turning the page before you've actually dealt with it or processed it.
"There's so many factors that come into play. I think about the game last year, I don't know how much this has been brought up or you thought about it... Washington at Chicago [last season] was among the worst Thursday night games that I've called in my career. I remember vividly in the middle of my game thinking, 'This is the bottom. It's not gonna get worse than this.'"
So all of that seems to indicate that "every game is it's own entity" and there is no real advantage of the short week because they are just that weird.
Plus, Eagle talks about his process of calling two NFL games a week as he gets ready for the NBA season and weighs in on what he’s seen out of second-year passer Sam Howell before shifting to everything that’s going wrong in Chicago.
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