GLENDALE — The following are odds and ends from the local sports scene.
REID, EAGLES GET
REMATCH WITH RIVAL
The Philadelphia Eagles, coached by former Glendale Community College football player Andy Reid, will look for a better result when they travel to face the Dallas Cowboys (11-5) in a National Football Conference wild-card playoff game at 5 p.m. PDT Saturday.
The Eagles (11-5), who finished second in the NFC’s East Division behind the Cowboys after Dallas won both head-to-head meetings, might have one thing working in their favor — they are 7-0 under Reid in playoff openers. The Eagles are 10-7 in the postseason under Reid since he became coach in 1999 and advanced to the Super Bowl in 2004.
Philadelphia will look to avenge last Sunday’s 24-0 loss to the host Cowboys.
“Very seldom do you have an opportunity to play a team that just got after you a little bit a second time,” Reid told the Associated Press. “We have that opportunity to correct ourselves. That’s an approach I expect the guys to take and I think with the leadership on this team, that will take place.
“In big games, coaches have to coach well and players have to play well. That’s everybody. That’s how that works, whether it’s to win the NFC East or whether it’s now in the playoffs. That’s what we’ve done over the years. When we were in big games, we played and coached well. We have to go back to that. That’s the challenge for this week.”
The Eagles advanced to the NFC championship game with road victories against the Minnesota Vikings and then-defending champion New York Giants before falling to the host Arizona Cardinals last season.
Philadelphia recently signed Reid to a three-year contract extension that will run through the 2013 season.
SEASON COMES TO CLOSE
FOR BARDEN, GIANTS
The 2009 season didn’t go quite as planned for the New York Giants and rookie wide receiver Ramses Barden’s first year with the club probably didn’t play out the way he would have scripted it, either.
After being inactive since New York’s Week Three game against the host Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Barden, a 2005 Flintridge Prep graduate, finally registered his first and only catch of the season — a 16-yard grab — in the Giants’ season finale 44-7 road loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
