Eagles-Buccaneers: Start time, channel, how to watch and stream ‘Thursday Night Football’

In a short week following a weird victory, the Eagles will take on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tonight on Thursday Night Football in the team’s final primetime game of the season (barring a late-season flex).

Calling the game on Fox are the network’s top NFL broadcasters — Troy Aikman and Joe Buck, who rubs a number of Eagles fans the wrong way (despite loving Philadelphia and having a Villanova grad as his stat guy in the booth).

Birds fans looking for an option outside of Merrill Reese and Mike Quick on 94.1 WIP can tune into a broadcast that features a Philadelphia native who grew up watching the Eagles at Veterans Stadium.

» READ MORE: Our writers make their predictions for Eagles-Buccaneers

Calling the game on Amazon’s Prime Video is Andrea Kremer, a Hall of Fame broadcaster and reporter who is back for the video-streaming service alongside ESPN’s Hannah Storm. Kremer and Storm became the first female duo to call an NFL game in 2018, and four years later they’re still together, broadcasting from a brand-new studio Amazon built in New York City.

“Amazon has shown tremendous faith in and support of Hannah and me,” Kremer told the Inquirer. “Amazon committed to us during a pandemic, and we had more games than ever.”

Kremer is a widely respected journalist covering sports, with an award-winning career that dates back to 1982 and the now-defunct Main Line Chronicle. From there she became the first female producer at NFL Films and ESPN’s first female correspondent. She’s now a chief correspondent for the NFL Network and a senior correspondent for HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

While most NFL analysts calling games are former players, Kremer varied reporting career allows her to bring a different perspective into her Amazon broadcasts. Just one example: Last week, when the broadcast showed a close up of the dislocated finger of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Westbrook, Kremer’s mind immediately jumped to a legendary Eagles player with similarly misshapen digits.

“I said, ‘Hannah, this brings to mind Chuck Bednarik,’” Kremer said. “And I described what his hands look like. I mean, I’ve shaken hands with him very gingerly — all five of his fingers point in different directions.”

As far as the Eagles go, Kremer hopes fans and team executives are willing to have some patience with the young team, especially coming off an ugly but unlikely victory over the Panthers last week (at one time, Kremer worked for WIP and knows what sports talkers have been saying about the Eagles).

Over the years, Kremer said she’s spoken to a countless number of first-year head coaches and they all told her the same thing: “You don’t even know what you don’t know your first year.”

“Patience is not a virtue of Philly fans, I know, but you’ve got to be able to let people go through their growing pains,” Kremer said. “To me, and I say this about any rookie head coach, does the team show a modicum of improvement on a week-to-week basis. And certainly after last week, there’s no doubt that after two really tough games against Dallas and Kansas City, they showed progress.”

So does Kremer think the Eagles actually have a chance to upset Brady and the defending Super Bowl champions? After all, the Birds are 6-0 in their last six Thursday night games.

“Last year at around this time we had the Bucs going up against the Bears. And it was the same thing, ‘Oh my God, the Bears… they have no shot,’” Kremer said, noting the Bears managed to pull off the upset. “Could this be a blowout? Absolutely. Could it be a really close game? Absolutely. I just don’t think you can take any opponent lightly in the league these days.”

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream tonight’s Eagles-Buccaneers game:

As with every Eagles game, staff writers Jeff McLane, EJ Smith, and Josh Tolentino will be covering the action live on Twitter, which you can follow live on GameDay Central. Notes and observations about the game will be at Inquirer.com/Eagles. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Inquirer Sports Daily Newsletter.

Coverage on Fox and the NFL Network begins at 7:30 p.m. with its FOX NFL Thursday pregame show, hosted by Curt Menefee alongside analysts Terry Bradshaw, Michael Strahan, and Mark Sanchez. Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer will also join the broadcast.

On Prime Video, NFL Next airs at 7 p.m., hosted by the NFL Network’s Kay Adams alongside former Eagles defender Chris Long, Andrew Hawkins, and Daniel Jeremiah. FOX NFL Thursday will also stream on Prime Video at 7:30 p.m.

Coverage on NBC Sports Philadelphia begins at 6 p.m. with Eagles Game Plan, hosted by John Clark, Ike Reese, and Mike Quick. That’s followed at 6:30 p.m. with Birds Huddle, a new show focused on sports betting and fantasy football featuring Taryn Hatcher, Brad Feinberg, Barrett Brooks, and John Clark.

Eagles Pregame Live, hosted by Michael Barkann and featuring Seth Joyner, Ray Didinger, and Barrett Brooks, will air live at 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Eagles Postgame Live will air immediately following the game.

Since 2018, Fox has aired 11 Thursday night games a season, with the rest airing on the NFL Network. But that deal expires at the end of this season, and beginning next year Amazon’s Prime Video will be the exclusive home to Thursday Night Football (though games will also air on television in the local markets of the two teams playing).

There’s been a lot of speculation about who Amazon will hire to call games. The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand has reported that Amazon is “90%” likely to hire veteran NBC announcer Al Michaels, who is on the final year of his contract and will call the Super Bowl this season.

“I don’t know what the future holds, and that is the truth,” Michaels said during a conference call with reporters before the season. “All I know is I just want to make this, which is year 36 for me on primetime football, the best, and then we’ll see what happens. I just have not come to any conclusions at this particular point.”

Kremer wouldn’t say if she’s pushed for Amazon to consider her and Storm for the main broadcast job.

“I believe this with all my heart — there’s no next year without a great this year,” Kremer said. “I am on a week-to-week basis, and I don’t have the bandwidth to even think about next year.”

In Week 15, two out of five games chosen by the NFL will be played on Saturday, with the rest played Sunday. Eagles-Washington is one of the five games chosen, and the specific dates and times will be announced by Week 11.