Eagles have favorable travel schedule to end 2021 season originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The NFL released its 2021 schedule on Wednesday, which naturally calls for digging way too deep into each franchise's 17-game slate.
And, when taking a look at the Philadelphia Eagles 2021 campaign, Washington's NFC East foe has quite the favorable travel schedule during the last two months of the season.
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As first pointed out by ProFootballTalk, Philadelphia's Week 10 trip to Denver on November 14 is the last time during the season the Eagles will likely have to travel to a road game via airplane.
After Week 11, the only remaining road games the Eagles have consist of trips to New York (well, New Jersey, technically) and Washington. Philadelphia faces both the Giants and the Jets in Metlife Stadium during that span before traveling to Washington on Jan. 2.
Both of those destinations are close enough that it's likely they'll bus to all three of those games, rather than fly.
Sure, this might not seem like a big deal on the surface. Travel is a major part of most professional sports and all 32 NFL teams will do their plenty of it this fall.
But, by not having to get on a plane across the country for the last two months of the season, the Eagles certainly have an advantage over most other teams, particularly their divisional rivals. Traveling is a lot more relaxed when going by bus, as the Eagles likely won't have to even leave Philly until the day before the game.
For instance, over that same seven-week span the Eagles don't have to fly, the Washington Football Team has trips to both Las Vegas and Dallas. Those are each three-plus hour flights.
Dallas has trips to Kansas City and New Orleans during that span, both will require airplane travel as well. For the Giants, they have late-season trips to Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
While the NFC East was poor in 2020, it remains one of the most competitive divisions in football on an annual basis. There's a reason no team has won the division two consecutive years since 2003 and 2004.
So, while the Eagles might have the lowest expectations of the four clubs entering 2021, their favorable travel schedule could become a factor at the end of the season, should they surprise some teams earlier in the year.
