A familiar voice to Birds fans will call Eagles-Commanders on CBS

While the Eagles are prioritizing next week’s wild card game, Sunday’s matchup against the Commanders is the sole focus of one announcer who grew up rooting for the Birds.

Ross Tucker, the Eagles preseason announcer on NBC10 since 2019, will call Eagles-Commanders on CBS alongside veteran play-by-play announcer Kevin Harlan. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:25 p.m Sunday.

Tucker, a Wyomissing native and former NFL offensive lineman, has called a number of Eagles games on radio for Westwood One, where he’s worked since 2015. But Sunday will be his first chance broadcasting a Birds game on TV for CBS.

“It’s super cool for me on multiple levels,” Tucker said. “I grew up an Eagles fan and all my friends are Eagles fans, so this will be really neat for them.”

It’s a stroke of luck on many fronts. Ordinarily, Tucker works games on CBS’s No. 6 crew alongside Phillies announcer Tom McCarthy. But Harlan’s normal broadcast partner, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green, is off this weekend to attend his son’s wedding, opening a slot for Tucker.

Despite that, the Eagles game wasn’t on Tucker’s radar, since Fox is traditionally the home of NFC games. But under new TV deals that began in 2021, the NFL is only required to schedule one of each NFC divisional matchup on Fox, which aired Eagles-Commanders in Week 16.

Tucker didn’t know he landed the Birds game until CBS announced their broadcast lineups Tuesday.

“I knew I was doing the game with Kevin for about three or four weeks, but I had no idea it would turn out to be the Eagles game,” Tucker said. “It’s really fortuitous.”

This will be the first game Tucker and Harlan have called together on TV, but the two have been paired on radio a bunch on Westwood One, including for playoff games. Harlan has called games alongside plenty of analysts during his 40-year career, but thinks Tucker’s insight as a former offensive lineman in a broadcasting world dominated by former quarterbacks is enlightening.

“Ross picks up nuance and the right way to capture what a line is doing or not doing, and I just find that refreshing,” Harlan said.

With the Eagles resting their starters, it turned out to be a prescient move by CBS to turn to Tucker, who watched every preseason snap and knows the Birds’ backups better than most. Harlan also calls preseason games for the Green Bay Packers, but that won’t help him much when it comes to the Birds’ backups.

“It’s a great challenge to come in and do a bunch of players I’m not really familiar with,” Harlan said. “I’m probably going to let Ross kind of lead things that he finds interesting to get the ball rolling, and then we’ll let the game take it from there.”

Calling Sunday’s Eagles game is certainly a milestone for Tucker, but he remains a workaholic. In addition to calling NFL games for CBS and Westwood One (where he’ll broadcast playoff games), he calls college football games and continues to host the daily Ross Tucker Football Podcast. He also nearly replaced Angelo Cataldi as the morning host on 94.1 WIP, but a daily commute from Reading to Philadelphia for a 6 a.m. show wasn’t in the cards.

“I still feel like I’m just grinding and trying to move up the ranks and doing the best I can,” Tucker said.

Tucker’s only regret is not being able to call his first Eagles game alongside McCarthy. The two have been friends since McCarthy called Tucker’s college football games at Princeton. And McCarthy, in his 12th season calling NFL games for CBS, has yet to land the Eagles, though he remains the only announcer not named Jim Nantz to call a game with Tony Romo.

“He is the best,” McCarthy said of Tucker. “Just a tremendous partner. We have had such an amazing year.”

But McCarthy has a nice consolidation prize. He will be in Cincinnati Sunday calling the Bengals’ matchup against the Cleveland Browns, where he’ll have the chance to voice Myles Garrett breaking the NFL’s single-season sack record (22), currently held by Michael Strahan.

This season, the Eagles have had their fair share of nationally televised games. That won’t be the case Sunday.

In addition to the Philadelphia TV market, Eagles-Commanders is also airing in Washington, D.C., and throughout most of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The game will also be available on CBS in Tampa, Fla., which an outsized number of Eagles fans call home.

It’s airing in two TV markets home to teams the Eagles have a chance of facing in the first round of the playoffs — San Francisco and Green Bay, along with most of Minnesota and all of Detroit.

It’ll also broadcast in Chicago, where Bears fans will be flipping to see which team ends up with the No. 2 seed.

Los Angeles Rams fans will be out of luck, though. While the Eagles are likely to face the Rams, CBS2 in Los Angeles is locked into airing the Chargers’ game against the Denver Broncos, where the AFC’s No. 1 seed is on the line.

Eagles fans in Philadelphia will get plenty of games Sunday impacting the playoffs.

On ESPN Saturday night, Carolina Panthers-Tampa Bay Buccaneers will likely decide the winner of the NFC South (although the Atlanta Falcons could play spoilers Sunday) while the winner of Seattle Seahawks-San Francisco 49ers will claim the NFC West crown and the No. 1 seed.

Sunday afternoon, Fox will air Detroit Lions-Chicago Bears at 4:25 p.m.. If the Eagles win and the Bears lose, the Birds will head to the playoffs as the No. 2 seed and host the Packers in the wild-card round. Otherwise the Birds will be the No. 3 seed and face the 49ers or Rams.

Sunday night, NBC has a win-or-go-home game in the Baltimore Ravens at the Pittsburgh Steelers. The winner heads to the playoffs as the AFC’s No. 4 seed.

Here are the games airing on TV in and around Philadelphia in Week 18:

» READ MORE: Rams loss in Week 17 eliminated one Eagles wild-card opponent as playoffs approach