Eagles facing NFL schedule disadvantage in Week 6 that no team has ever overcome

The NFL didn’t really think through this part of the schedule

It's been a rough week for the Philadelphia Eagles, and things could get even worse on Sunday when they face the Carolina Panthers. For their Week 6 game, the Eagles will be facing a scheduling disadvantage that no team has ever been able to overcome: They're coming off an international game and they have to face a team coming off a bye. So, how bad of a disadvantage is this? It's only happened four times — so it's a small sample size — but the team coming off the international game is 0-4 against the team coming off a bye and 0-3-1 against the spread, which suggests this does put teams at a competitive disadvantage.

Over the past decade, the NFL has generally tried to avoid situations like this, but the league essentially gave up on that this year, with a total of five teams stuck in this exact situation. Here's a brief look at the four games in which a team coming off an international game faced a team off a bye. Here's where things get even uglier: The team coming off the international trip has averaged just 15.25 points per game. And to make things worse, the four international teams were outscored 70-30 over the first three quarters. Again, it's a small sample size, but those are eye-opening