On Sports Media | Forget first game, Fox analyst urges

The Eagles' 27-24 regular-season loss to New Orleans at the Superdome was among the more exciting games of the season. The Saints won it on John Carney's 31-yard field goal as time expired.

All week the Eagles have been peppered with questions about that first game. Despite what happened three months ago, the advice of Fox analyst Daryl "Moose" Johnston is to forget about anything that occurred during that Oct. 15 matchup.

Johnston, 40, will be announcing the Eagles' divisional playoff game against the Saints at 8 p.m. tomorrow with Dick Stockton and field reporter Tony Siragusa.

A former two-time Pro Bowl Dallas Cowboys fullback who had his share of battles against the Eagles, Johnston will enter the game with a simple theme.

"We will go in knowing the first game has really no relevance to this game," Johnston said earlier this week in a phone interview. "There is too much that changed from when they played earlier."

Another thing that Johnston says that won't be the same from the first time is the atmosphere in the charged-up Superdome. While the regular-season meeting was fairly loud on the decibel meter, Johnston says it won't compare to tomorrow night.

"This game will blow the other one out of the water," he said. "It's the first time the Saints have hosted a divisional in franchise history, and I think it will be the loudest stadium I've ever been in."

That's quite a statement considering that Johnston was a member of three Super Bowl championship teams with the Cowboys.

Johnston feels that it indeed will be a close game, with the potential for plenty of scoring. That isn't surprising since the Saints and Eagles were first and second in the NFL in total offense.

Johnston said the key for the Eagles is to get off to a fast start. In the regular-season loss to the Saints, the Eagles trailed, 10-0, after the first quarter.

"I think that if New Orleans gets out by 10 early, with that crowd, that will be it," Johnston said.

Like many others, Johnston said he had written the Eagles off after they had fallen to 5-6 following a 45-21 loss at Indianapolis.

"I was on the Jimmy Johnson bandwagon," Johnston said about his former Cowboys head coach and fellow Fox analyst who had repeatedly written off the Eagles this season. "When Donovan [McNabb] went down, I thought the season was over."

Johnston is now a believer and is impressed with all facets of the Eagles' game. He says an obvious key has been the play of Jeff Garcia at quarterback and the way he has worked with offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg.

"For whatever reason, the team has rallied around Jeff Garcia," Johnston said. "And it seems like the familiarity that Marty has with Jeff from their time together in San Francisco has really paid off. They have a much more balanced attack and are not relying on the big play."

Johnston said that there were other factors for the Eagles' success.

"It's not just Jeff Garcia; the whole team is functioning well," he said.

For Johnston, this will be his announcing Super Bowl. As the No. 2 analyst for Fox, it will be his final game of the season.

The No. 1 Fox crew of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will broadcast the Jan. 21 NFC championship game.

"We will have 100 percent of the country watching our game," said Johnston, who is completing his seventh year as a Fox analyst. "We want to finish on a good note and walk away feeling we had a good broadcast. [That] helps us build toward next year."