The Eagles announced this morning on social media that they will be going with their all-black uniform set for tomorrow's Thursday Night Football affair against the New York Giants.
The 1-4-1 Birds rocking their alternate jerseys when the wheels are falling off for this team? Yeah, that's a panic move to try to recapture the juice this franchise is woefully missing.
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It was back in 2018 that I first realized that the Eagles use their black jerseys as a "break glass in case of emergency" function to keep the fans excited when the Birds are floundering.
Yes, I know it's commonplace for the Eagles to don their black uniform set at home against the Giants, particularly since a lot of those games, even dating back to the Chip Kelly era, came at night. The Eagles have worn them in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 against the G-Men. Every game but that 2018 contest were prime time matchups.
The Birds were coming off back-to-back losses in November that season. The first came against the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, where they also wore their black uniforms in a 27-20 defeat. The following week, the Saints absolutely demolished the Eagles down in the Big Easy 48-7, likely the worst Eagles game I've witnessed in my 26 years on this planet.
The Eagles were reigning Super Bowl champions and had a wildly disappointing 4-6 record. They were at the Linc in Week 12 for a normal 1:00 p.m. game against a 3-7 New York squad and smashed the "all-black jerseys" button. The Giants actually had a 19-3 lead in the second quarter that day before the Birds battled back for a 25-22 victory that was less than encouraging for the direction of the team.
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If the Birds had lost that game after panicking and opting for the black uniforms? They might have had to discontinue them all together.
I'm not even sure they deserve to wear them when their record's under .500!
The Eagles have owned the Giants for the last decade, for sure, and their black jerseys have brought them tremendous success against one of their bitterest rivals. Nevertheless, don't let the allure of blasting AC/DC's "Back in Black" at 8 p.m. tomorrow distract you from the fact that this is a rudderless ship of a football team that's somehow going to win the worst division in the history of the sport.