Eagles’ Schedule Changed For Pope’s Visit

The Philadelphia Eagles’ schedule for the 2015-2016 football season, just like that of every other NFL team, has already been set. The home games and away games have been worked out, and fans have seen the official schedule. For Eagles fans, however, something about this year’s schedule might seem puzzling: of the first four games this season, three of them are away. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it? Well, there’s a good reason for the abnormality – the schedule was built around the fact that Pope Francis will be in town in September.

The pope’s schedule has been released. 

According to CBS, the schedule came around when Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput wrote last July to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell asking that nobody in the NFL play in Philadelphia on Sunday, Sept. 27 because Pope Francis would be in town. The NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz told press that he wasn’t going to take any chances by having the game in town at the same time as the pope, so the request was honored. The NFL went through 37,793 versions of the regular-season schedule before deciding on the one that was released to the public last week.

The Pope’s visit is expected to bring as many as two million people flooding into town. The pontiff will attend a Festival of Families and will also hold mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. There have actually been concerns that more people will be coming to Philadelphia than there are hotel rooms to hold. Catholic families living in the area have been asked to host visitors in their homes in the absence of sufficient hotel rooms.