Local stations go heavy on Eagles by Laura Nachman Bucks County Courier Times January 16, 2004 Local television stations are leading the Eagles mania this weekend. Today, Beasley Reece and the rest of the station's starting lineup will lead a pep rally at City Hall at noon on KYW. Tonight, Cecily Tynan and Gary Papa host "Quest for a Championship" on WPVI at 7. Vai Sikahema, John Clark, Howard Eskin and company host "Unfinished Business" on WCAU at 7:30 p.m. CN8 will air "Showdown Houston" tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. On game night, Fox-Philadelphia's "Game Day Live" begins at 5 p.m. The Fox "NFL Sunday Team" with Jimmy Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, James Brown and Howie Long will do its show from Lincoln Financial Field at 6 p.m. One of the scheduled features will be "Is Three Times the Charm?" with Pam Oliver interviewing Donovan McNabb, Andy Reid and Duce Staley. Joe Buck, Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman will do their second NFC championship game at 6:45 p.m. Sunday. Oliver will be on the sidelines, and Bill Maas will handle post-game interviews. In a conference call the other day, Aikman said he thought there was much more pressure on the Eagles in the game because they've lost back-to-back NFC championship games. "Philadelphia has a chip on its shoulder," he said. "Carolina has nothing to lose." Aikman also added the Eagles aren't taking anything for granted. Aikman wasn't concerned about the Eagles' propensity to give up lots of yards on the ground. "Big plays lead to points, not statistics," he said. Staley, Jim Johnson and the Eagles wide receivers were cited by Aikman as keys to the game, besides the obvious key, Donovan McNabb. Has anyone else noticed that James Thrash is making so few catches of his own, that now he is pointing to the sky when someone else on the team makes a catch? After the game, Comcast SportsNet will do "Eagles Post Game Live." CN8 also will do a live special following the game. With the excellent ratings for the prime time playoff games last weekend (the Eagles-Packers game was the highest rated game of the year with a 23.8 rating/40 share nationally), expect more playoff games at night. It's better than "The District." "American Idol" champion Ruben Studdard will sing the national anthem. Channel flipping On Monday night, I caught "The Coaches' Show" on WYSP 94.1-FM about 7:40 p.m. Silly of me to think that I would actually hear 20 minutes of a show. This program had more padding than an Eagles offensive lineman. I was treated to about 10 minutes of commercials, a rehash of highlights of the other games from the weekend, about one minute of Andy Reid, and a sign-off around 7:55. ... And from the Carolina-St. Louis game: Fox sideline reporter Tony Siragusa would be better suited to play the late "Big Pussy's" brother on "The Sopranos" than sideline reporter on Fox. He makes ABC's Lisa Guererro look good. ... With the great play of the Eagles, the fans have found someone else to boo besides the players - KYW's traffic reporter Bob Kelly. According to an Eagles season ticket holder, Kelly gets booed every time he appears on Jumbotron. Maybe it would be safer to stay in the TV studio. Laura Nachman covers television and radio sports for the Courier Times. She can be reached at bradyresident@aol.com. January 16, 2004 7:06 AM