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Eagles fans aren’t happy with Al Michaels and Peter King after Cowboys loss

Michaels and King both suggested Eagles fans were ungrateful after booing the team during Sunday night's loss to the Cowboys.

"Sunday Night Football" announcer Al Michaels and NBC Sports columnist Peter King both suggested Eagles fans were ungrateful after booing the team during Sunday night's loss to the Cowboys.
"Sunday Night Football" announcer Al Michaels and NBC Sports columnist Peter King both suggested Eagles fans were ungrateful after booing the team during Sunday night's loss to the Cowboys.Read moreAP photo / NBC Sports Philadelphia

After the Eagles allowed a touchdown to the Cowboys just before halftime of Sunday's 27-20 loss on Sunday Night Football, hometown fans at Lincoln Financial Field let the team know how they felt about the lackluster performance by unleashing an angry wave of boos directed at the team.

For many people watching, it was an appropriate response to a disappointing first half of a game the Eagles were expected to dominate. But two of NBC Sports' most well-known personalities didn't see it that way.

Sunday Night Football play-by-play announcer Al Michaels was the first to weigh in on the sea of boos by suggesting Eagles fans were ungrateful following the team's Super Bowl championship last season.

"Well, it's Philadelphia. What have you done for me lately?" Michaels quipped. "Forget the Lombardi."

Following the game, NBC Sports columnist Peter King went further. In his weekly "Football Morning in America" column, King named Eagles fans his "Goat of the Week" and ripped them for vocalizing their displeasure.

Here's what King wrote:

It hasn't been the season you'd want in Philly. And you're losing to the Cowboys, toothlessly, 13-3. But booing the crap out of the team that delivered a stirring Super Bowl win nine months ago? Totally bush league.

On WIP's morning show Monday, co-host Rhea Hughes — who attended Sunday's game at the Linc — unloaded on both Michaels and King for criticizing Eagles fans after the team's lackluster first half.

"You just called the Eagles toothless, and the Eagles fans are supposed to golf clap him?" Hughes said. "You know what the problem is with Peter King and Al Michaels? They haven't paid for a ticket, in a long, long, long time. They don't have a clue. They're not sitting in the stands, they're not paying for those tickets. They have no clue."

"I would expect to be booed after a performance like that," said former Flyers player and fellow NBC Sports announcer Keith Jones. "It should be in every city, unfortunately it's not. But Philadelphia does it the best."

An NBC spokesman said King stood by what he wrote.

>> READ MORE: Eagles coach Doug Pederson is blowing this season for the Super Bowl champs

"The academic and egghead way to say it would be that Peter's statement reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the Philadelphia fan base. Basically, he doesn't get it," my colleague, columnist Mike Sielski, told WIP's Angelo Cataldi Monday morning. "Winning was never going to lower the standard of Philadelphia Eagles fans. If anything, it was always going to ratchet the pressure up on the team higher to repeat."

"If he thinks that Philadelphia fans shouldn't have been booing in that situation last night, I don't know what games he's been watching and what fans he's been exposed to over his years covering the NFL and the Eagles," Sielski added.

NBC Sports Philadelphia's Ray Didinger was also unhappy King took a shot at Eagles fans, pointing out that no one loves the team as much as the tens of thousands of fans who spent a cold Sunday evening watching a disappointing performance against a lackluster opponent.

"People outside this area, they don't need much of an excuse to criticize Philadelphia fans. They want to do that anyway. But for someone to point to that and say, 'See, that makes them lousy fans.' No, I don't think it does. I think it just proves to you that theses fans here set a high standard," Didinger said. "Unfortunately this season, and particularly last night, this team didn't come anywhere closer to meeting it."

>> READ MORE: Loss to Cowboys is proof: Eagles are as bad as the rest of the NFC East