Game 15

Friday, January 20, 2012
Game 15: Wells Fargo Center
Sixers 90, Hawks 76

PHILADELPHIA — Let’s say, for instance, you are a really good painter. In fact, you’re such a great painter that galleries fight to hang your work and critics can’t get enough of it.

And yet even though you are a terrific painter, people still get on you because you are a lousy sculptor. You’re going to say that doesn’t make sense, right?

Yeah, well, welcome to Andre Iguodala’s world.

When it comes to playing defense in basketball, there are very few people on the planet as good as Andre Iguodala. Truth is, Iguodala is such a good defender that he very well may earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team set to defend its gold medal in London this summer.

“If you would talk to the best scorers in the league that he’s guarded and say who is one of the toughest guys you have to go against, they would say, Andre Iguodala,” Sixers’ coach Doug Collins said.

“From a coaching standpoint, you understand what he brings. I love what Andre does for us.”

Yet for some reason the biggest criticism of Iguodala is that he is an inconsistent offensive player.

How does that make sense?

There is perception and then there is the reality when it comes to Iguodala and his weird relationship with certain segments of the fandom. The problem with that is the perception is usually the part that gets the most fanfare.

Often, Iguodala is criticized because his salary is “excessive,” yet it barely cracks the top 40 of all NBA players. Meanwhile, it seems as if Iguodala’s perceived unpopularity comes from his personality. He’s neither boisterous nor zany. He’s not one to suffer fools as evidenced in the 2006 Dunk Contest where he pulled off the most impressive and nuanced dunk of the show only to lose to Nate Robertson because he’s short and a better story. Rather than grin-and-bear it, Iguodala hasn’t appeared in another competition figuring there are better ways to have one’s time wasted.

Iguodala is all nuance and professionalism. There are all the things we can see like the fact that heading into last year he had missed just six games in six seasons and played in 252 regular-season games in a row. He’s led the league not only in games by playing in all 82 in five of his seven seasons, but also minutes played and average minutes per game. The dude plays the game and he's rare in that he's a ridiculously talented athlete with instatiable hard-nosed/blue-collar chops, too. He's the best of both worlds and he shows up and goes to work.

He earns his pay.

Last year he played the final two months of the season with tendonitis in his knees. Actually, his condition was similar to the injury that forced Phillies second baseman Chase Utley to miss the first two months of last season, yet Iguodala is rarely talked about as a gritty and scrappy player the way Utley is.

Ah, so maybe there’s a personality issue or something.

Iguodala is a bit of a rarity in sports in that he is a truth teller. He’s immune to cliché (well, as much as possible) and actually answers questions. Want an answer? Iguodala has one. And though it could be off the mark like some of his long-range jumpers, he’s always provocative. For instance, last year Iguodala and the team's top draft choice, Evan Turner, clashed a bit. It wasn't anything serious, just two guys from diffrent perspectives trying to figure each ither out. So, when asked about it, Iguodala presented a thoughtful, honest answer.

“Evan and I have had a pretty interesting year together — good and bad,” Iguodala said. “We’ve always tried to lean on each other. Over the past week we really bonded and I was happy to see him be in position to do something good and follow through with it.

“I’ve been saying all year that he’s a confidence guy and when his confidence is high, he plays really well. When his confidence is down, he has a lot of self doubt and he doesn’t believe in himself,” Iguodala explained. “But we all know he can play ball and we’ve had many arguments throughout the year in regard to talents and he’s going to prove a lot of people wrong.

“We had a chance to sit down and we had dinner together and were together for about three hours. We just reflected on the whole year and things that happened and what could have changed and things that made us better people or held us back a little bit. It was a good chat.”

When do athletes ever talk like that? It’s kind of like when asked a simple question about whether he will return to the Sixers next year and instead chooses to discuss the legacy he hopes to build.

“I always think about that, keep climbing the charts with some of the greatest basketball players ever — Dr. J, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Hal Greer, Wilt Chamberlain. The franchise has been here forever. And just for my name to be brought up for the guy with the most steals in team history is something I've always thought about,” Iguodala said. “I want to continue to climb the charts and take the team to the next level.”

No, Iguodala is not like most of the athletes that have come through town. He seems to be a strange mix of Charles Barkley, Donovan McNabb and Scott Rolen. At different times all three of those guys were the most beloved or loathed athletes in town. Iguodala is just different. He's the guy a lot of folks just can't accept for who he is.

Eagles playoff football: Worst losses ever

Once again the Eagles ended a season filled with promise and expectation with a frustrating defeat in the playoffs. Under head coach Andy Reid, it’s an annual rite of January that his team will frustrate and underwhelm when the playoffs begin. That’s just what the Eagles do when the playoffs start.

This time it was the Green Bay Packers who perplexed Reid with a rarely seen running attack that just made the Eagles’ inability to cash in on opportunities all the more maddening.

You know… different year, same crash-landing result.

So as the Eagles push into their second half-century without a championship (the third-longest drought amongst NFL teams and 15 years longer than the Flyers’ epic run without a title amongst Philly teams) it’s only fair to size up the latest failure with the other mind-numbing defeats.

Here are the Eagles’ worst non-Super Bowl losses in the playoffs in no particular order of disappointment:

2003 NFC Championship at Lincoln Financial Field (Jan. 18, 2004)

Panthers 14, Eagles 3

You know the phrase, “It was like watching paint dry…” In the case of this game such a statement would be unfair to paint, the color spectrum and the periodic chart of elements. Truth is, it would have been preferable to watch paint dry than this football game.

Usually the numbers don’t tell the entire story of a game, but this one sure did. Donovan McNabb, playing with torn cartilage in his ribs, went 10-for-22 with 100 yards passing and three interceptions by 5-foot-9 cornerback, Ricky Manning Jr. Eventually, Koy Detmer came on to relieve McNabb, but it wasn’t enough to boost the Eagles.

Of course what would a playoff loss in the playoffs be without complaints of Reid’s coaching moves? What would we talk about if we weren’t befuddled about the coach’s decade-long aversion to a running game… even when it’s working? The word after this game was that lineman Jon Runyan pleaded with the coaches to keep running the ball, especially since Correll Buckhalter and Duce Staley combined for 137 rushing yards.

No, this one might not have been the most disappointing loss in team history, but it was easily the ugliest.

2002 NFC Championship at Veterans Stadium (Jan. 19, 2003)

Buccaneers 27, Eagles 10

This one began with Brian Mitchell’s 70-yard kickoff return to set up a touchdown run by Duce Staley that had the old stadium shaking behind the raucousness of the fans in its final football game. It ended with Ronde Barber returning an interception 92 yards with a crowd so quiet that Barber could be heard celebrating his run in the upper reaches of the stadium.

From here the Buccaneers went on to trounce the Raiders in a Super Bowl most thought was destined to be the Eagles’ to lose… only if they got there, of course. In fact, the scene in the parking lot before the game was as celebratory as it could get without the brush fires or flipped over cars. There was even one enthusiastic gentleman in moll of the parking-lot scene urging the Eagles to “Beat the Bucs” while parading around with a deer head trophy.

Wrong type of Bucs, dude.

Maybe we should have seen how it was going to turn out based off the overconfidence beforehand?

1988 NFC Divisional Game at Soldier Field (Dec. 31, 1988)

Bears 20, Eagles 12

The Fog Bowl

Unbelievably, Randall Cunningham threw for 407 yards on 27-for-54 passing with 254 of those yards spread amongst Keith Byers and Keith Jackson. However, Cunningham also threw three interceptions and by the time the thick fog rolled in off Lake Michigan and visibility was reduced to nothing, the Eagles’ chances of finding the end zone also disappeared.

Unbelievably, The Fog Bowl seems like something perfectly suited to happen to the post-1960 Eagles. That’s especially the case for the late-80s to mid-90s versions of the team where it could be argued that those Eagles’ teams were amongst the most talented in NFL history to never win a Super Bowl. It was almost as if the Eagles of this era had a starting pitching rotation with four aces but couldn’t quite get to where they were supposed to be.

The Fog Bowl personified this era. The Eagles, specifically Cunningham, did everything but score a touchdown and win the game. And for once, it seemed as if the folks watching at home and the players on the field saw the same exact things. The same goes for Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw calling the action in the broadcast booth:

Lundquist: "Cunningham will throw … or run. Sacked for the fourth time. Wait a minute …"

Bradshaw: "He got rid of the ball, Verne."

Lundquist: "Must have. He completed it to somebody. And we're not trying to make light of this, but it is actually impossible for us to see the field."

Cunningham says the Eagles could have played with more than 11 players and no one would have been the wiser.

“When that fog rolled in, you might as well close your eyes and close up the shop,” Cunningham told ESPN.com. “That was it.”

The fog rolled in late in the second quarter with the Bears leading 17-6. From that point all the Bears had to do was go into a stall… for 30 minutes. Nevertheless, Bears quarterback Mike Tomczak insists the game was won because the Bears were better.

No so, defensive stalwart Seth Joyner told ESPN.com.

“Some wins you win by domination, and some wins you win by default,” Joyner said. “He needs to go back and look at the film.”

Needless to say, there are a lot of Eagles’ playoff games that could be said about.

1978 NFC Wild-Card Game at Fulton County Stadium (Dec. 24, 1978)

Falcons 14, Eagles 13

When punter Mike Michel was forced into kicking duties and missed an extra-point in the first quarter, it hardly seemed like a big deal. After all, with five minutes to go in the game the Eagles led 13-0 and were poised to win their first postseason game since the 1960 NFL Championship.

But Falcons’ QB Steve Bartkowski threw two touchdown passes to take the lead, with the game-winner coming on a 37-yard pass to Wallace Francis with 1:39 to go in the game. Actually, it was the ensuing extra point that proved to be the winning score in the first-ever wild-card playoff game (video).

Still, the Eagles had a chance to win the game. Ron Jaworski appeared to have hit rookie Oren Middlebrook at the goal line with 45 seconds left, but the ball fell out of the receiver’s hands. Jaworski overthrew Harold Carmichael with 17 seconds left, to set up a 34-yard field goal attempt, but of course, Michel shanked it.

Needless to say, that spring coach Dick Vermeil drafted barefoot kicker Tony Franklin in the third round of the and Michel, just 24, never appeared in another NFL game.

So why was Michel kicking at all and why didn’t Vermeil go out and get a real kicker when starter (and Temple alum) Nick Mike-Meyer went down with a rib injury? Better yet, why didn’t Vermeil get a real kicker before the Eagles’ first playoff game in 18 seasons especially since Michel missed three of the 12 extra points he attempted? Good questions, huh…

Actually, reports from 1978 say Vermeil did try out a bunch of kickers only Michel was the best of the bunch in practice. Though the missed kick was Michel’s last play in an NFL game (his 35.8 yards per punt average not good enough to get him a job punting), reports were that Michel rarely missed in practice. Nevertheless, kicking in practice against some guys off the street and in the playoffs is a little different.

Daily News beat writer Gary Smith, now with Sports Illustrated, wrote:

This was like taking a driver’s ed class at the Indy 500.

Sunday’s defeat was nowhere as bad as losing because of a missed extra point or because the fog was too thick to run the offense. But then again, when it comes to losses in the playoffs Andy Reid deals in quantity, not quality.

2010: The year of Roy, Lee and crazy endings

Note: For all intents, this will be the last installment for 2010 and as such we here at The Food would like to extend hearty December wishes to all our supporters, friends, colleagues and even the haters. All of these folks made 2010 a pretty interesting year and we’re hoping 2011 can be just as good. So for now, see you soon and be ready for some cool things to come, including the reemergence of The Podcast of Awesomeness in early January.

I don’t like end of the year lists. In fact, I loathe them. Yeah… loathe. It’s not a normal thing for people to dislike, especially one in the business of recounting things that already happened. Weird, right?

Maybe it’s something about the passage of time that gets some people like me down. Another year slips by, another year older, another missed chance. Or perhaps the veritable annual list is the refuge of the hack, kind of like the post-game or post-season report cards? List and report cards? Lame.

Thing is, I enjoy reading a list from time to time. When done well or uniquely, they can be fascinating. Chances are this won’t be one of them, but alas, I’m saving my ideas for something else.

So, without any more blathering on, here are some lists of a pretty remarkable year that is all but gone.

Best big-time performance nearly everyone forgot about

Roy Halladay vs. San Francisco in Game 5 of NLCS

Undoubtedly, 2010 was a pretty big year for Roy Halladay. In fact, Halladay also should be the top of a list for both elbowing a big event out of the way (perfect game in Miami on the same day as Game 1 of the Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals), while also being shoved out of the limelight (Donovan McNabb was traded to Washington the night before his debut with the Phillies in Washington). The fact is Halladay did everything for the Phillies except for a World Series victory, but we have to figure that the addition of Cliff Lee to the pitching rotation should remedy that.

It wasn’t as if Halladay had too many doubters in 2010, though a few warnings were issued, like my favorite delivered before the Halladay’s postseason debut: “Hey, he’s going to learn that the playoffs are much different than the regular season…”

Yeah, they’re easier. Halladay made his playoff debut with his second no-hitter of the season and just the second ever in postseason history.

But sometimes it really isn’t easy at all. For instance, Halladay did not have an easy time in the do-or-die Game 5 in San Francisco against Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum. Halladay suffered a groin injury during the second inning of the game—one that would have ended his night during the regular season—but persevered long enough to pitch the Phillies to victory. The injury came while attempting to put a little something extra on a pitch to Cody Ross, and hurt so badly that Halladay says he spent the time between innings jogging and riding a stationary bike so the groin would not further tighten and cramp.

So Halladay would pitch an inning then workout until it was time to pitch again. The catch-22 was that the legs are vital to a pitcher like Halladay, so not only was he keeping the cramps at bay, but also was tiring other muscles needed to pitch.

Instead, he labored through six innings, didn’t have the greatest command or velocity, yet still held the Giants to just two runs to beat Lincecum and save the season.

Afterwards, many players on the team said Halladay’s performance was more impressive than the no-hitter and perfect game.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” said Brad Lidge, who got the save in the game. “It’s not going to go down that way. But the guy was pitching on one wheel and he gave us six innings and left with the lead in a game we had to win or else. People won’t realize how great this was because there’s no statistic for it, but we, the guys in this clubhouse, do.”

Equally impressive was how Halladay shrugged it off after the game and even threw his hat into the ring as a possible reliever for a potential Game 7.

“I was going to try to find a way,” Halladay said. “I just hoped that way was going to be good enough and fortunately it was.”

Unfortunately there is no statistic or formula to measure what Halladay meant to the Phillies in that game.

Heroic performance that ended badly

Roy Oswalt in relief vs. San Francisco in Game 4 of NLCS

Who doesn’t love feats of strength? Who doesn’t get excited by extraordinary occurrences? In those regards, a pitcher working on short rest is always a time to sit up and take notice.

First of all, something had to happen to put a team in the position to use a pitcher without proper rest. Usually that thing isn’t good, and in this instance starter Roy Oswalt saw the way the pivotal Game 4 was unfolding and figured he had to do something. When he looked down the right-field line and saw Kyle Kendrick throwing warm-up pitches next to lefty Antonio Bastardo and Ryan Madson so quickly after Chad Durbin gave up the lead on the third hitter he faced, Oswalt probably didn’t feel too confident. Chances are Oswalt might have panicked when he saw Charlie Manuel’s options.

So when Madson went out to the mound to start his second inning of work in the eighth, Oswalt approached pitching coach Rich Dubee with a proposition…

Give me the ball.

Imagine what a legend Oswalt would have become if he would have survived the ninth, figured out a way to win the game, and then rode Halladay’s performance in Game 5 to a 3-2 advantage going back to Philadelphia. Backed by a masterful three-hitter over eight innings just two days prior, Oswalt could have been the catalyst to get the Phillies back into the World Series.

Instead, he was merely a footnote and a mark in the box score that indicates that he got two outs in the ninth inning of a loss. Oh, but it was nearly so much more.

Most disappointing way to end a season

Ryan Howard watching strike three go past with tying and winning runs on base

Yeah, it was the one moment that perfectly defined the Phillies in hitters in 2010. Though Ryan Howard batted a team best .318 in the NLCS, he struck out a record-breaking 12 times. Instead of a big hit like in the 2009 NLDS against Colorado in a similar situation, Howard watched the season end with the umpire waving his right hand in the air.

Oh, but every dark cloud has a silver lining. Knowing that the rapidly aging Phillies’ hitters are streaky and riddled with question marks, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. thought it was necessary to go out and get Cliff Lee.

Way to go, big fella.

Honorable mention

Patrick Kane’s goal in overtime of Game 6 that Michael Leighton still hasn’t seen or fished out of the net was particularly maddening, but not for the reasons one would think.

Though it ended the Flyers’ chances to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 35 years, and ruined an improbable comeback thanks to Scott Hartnell’s goal with 3:59 remaining in regulation, this one was especially sloppy because the Blackhawks had to wait for a review before they could properly celebrate. We knew it was a goal, but we had to wait…

And then Jeremy Roenick cried.

Best one-day performance in Philadelphia

Usain Bolt at the Penn Relays

Actually, this one could go down for the best performance nobody paid much attention to except for the 50,000 people packed into Franklin Field.

Certainly there many candidates for this one, like Roy Halladay and his no-hitters or Michael Vick’s recent spate of awesomeness, but when the fastest man ever to set foot on the planet comes to town and then runs faster than anyone has ever seen before… well, that’s beyond cool.

Usain Bolt, of course, is the 23-year-old Jamaican who destroyed the world records in the 100- and 200-meters at the Olympics in 2008 and the World Championships in 2009 in a manner that transcended mere athletics. In fact, Bolt’s electrifying efforts at those competitions motivated a even a few of the most jaded and experienced sports writers to describe the events as the most exciting and exhilarating they had ever seen.

Moreover, crusty old veteran track coaches have gone so far as to compare Bolt’s talent along the lines of those possessed by Einstein, Beethoven and Newton. Certainly those aren’t the usual names one hears an elite-level athlete compared to.

Still, the largest crowd in the 116-year history of the Penn Relays came to see one guy, and he competed for just 8.79 seconds in his anchor leg effort. Actually, Bolt’s personality and talent is so large in the sport, that Olympic gold medalists and champions of the sport lingered around the track just to catch a glimpse.

And then he did his “Lightning” pose.

“I was leadoff leg and I could actually hear, right next to me, the crowd screaming. I’ve been coming here for about 12 years now, and this was the loudest one. It was great,” said two-time world champion, Lisa Barber, who helped Team USA win the women’s 4x100-meters. “When Bolt was warming up, I couldn't hear my music anymore through my headphones. It's great that Usain is getting this much press. He’s getting so much recognition worldwide.”

Playing a team sport is one thing, but watching a guy run as fast as Bolt is stunning.

Actually, just seeing Bolt run might be the coolest and surreal thing in all of sports. Standing yards away from the finishing line on Saturday, Bolt moves past as if he were a runaway motorcycle and the breeze from his nearly 30-mph wake was enough to cool the crowd on a sun-soaked afternoon.

“I told the guys to make sure I didn't have to work, because I really didn't want to do much,” Bolt said. “I got the baton, so I wasn’t really worried about anything else.”

Worried? What could the fastest man in the history of the earth ever have to worry about?

Best example of being careful or someone will lose an eye

Ian Laperriere blocked shot vs. New Jersey in Game 5 of NHL playoffs

Interestingly, one of the best ways to remove blood from an article of clothing or fabric is with an ice cube. According to one of those helpful hints web sites, the ice will melt through the fabric and take the blood with it. However, blood stains on the ice require a little more elbow grease to come out. The trail of blood left behind by Ian Laperriere on his way to the Flyers’ dressing room took a stoppage of the game, the ice crew to skate out with tools to chip it away and then about 60 or 70 stitches to close up the cut right above his eye.

Who knew a piece of vulcanized rubber traveling approximately 100-mph could cause so much damage to a man’s face? Moreover, who knew a man would be so crazy enough to put his face in the way of something traveling so fast all because he felt it would be beneficial to his teammates?

Better yet, as soon as Laperriere realized he had not left his eye out on the ice and just needed a few dozen stitches, he boasted he would do the same thing over again if the situation arose.

“He would have been back on the bench if they could have gotten him stitched up in time,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said.

The best part about Laperriere stopping a puck with his eye to help the Flyers eliminate the Devils in the first round of the playoffs wasn’t all that blood. That was quite disturbing. No, what was cool was that Laperriere took his time to answer question from the press—even offering to “go outside” and fight with a writer—so soon after blood poured out of his face as if being released from a squeezie bottle.

“I do what I do and I don’t think twice about doing it,” Laperriere said. “The next game, if I get a chance to block a shot I’ll go down, because that’s what I do. The day I stop doing that, I’ll retire. Call me dumb, call me stupid, whatever. I block shots.”

He’s not lying. Earlier in the season, Laperriere took a puck to the face that opened up his mouth as if it were a piñata. In that case he needed more than 100 stitches to close the wound, and since it occurred early enough in the game, Laperriere was back on the ice by the third period.

Yes, he blocks shots.

Best game we will still be talking about next year

Eagles 38, Giants 31

Michael Vick, Desean Jackson and 28 points in eight minutes. Was it real or was it Tecmo Bowl?

The fact is the Eagles’ crazy comeback at the Meadowlands last Sunday was the best ending to a regular-season football game most of us will see. However, I must admit I am saddened that the Sept. 17, 1989 game in which the Eagles scored 21 in the final quarter to overcome a 20-point deficit at RFK Stadium.

Remember that one? That’s when Randall Cunningham threw for 447 yards with five TD passes and 12 catches for Keith Jackson. Jerome Brown, Reggie White, Wes Hopkins and the rest of the Gang Green defense was at its chaotic best even though Redskins’ running back Gerald Riggs ran for 221 yards.

Make that 221 yards offset by four fumbles and two interceptions by the greatest Philadelphia team to never win a championship.

Incidentally, the week after the comeback in Washington, the Eagles lost to the 49ers at the Vet when Joe Montana threw four TD passes in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, the Redskins got revenge when they beat the Eagles in a playoff game in Philly. The next day, Buddy Ryan was “fired for winning.”

Best trade

Donovan McNabb to Washington for draft picks in 2010 and 2011

The trade that brought Roy Halladay to Philly was pretty good. So too was the trade for Roy Oswalt, who turned out to be the Phillies’ best pitcher in August and September.

However, has there ever been a more impactful “addition by subtraction” deal than the McNabb trade? McNabb has been sent to the bench in Washington while his replacement, Michael Vick, looks to be the MVP of the NFL. How did that happen?

It’s funny to look back to last April when it all went down. Looking back on what was said the afternoon of the introductory press conference at Redskin Park in Ashburn, Va., the seasons for both teams turned out to be the exact opposite as predicted.

McNabb said he knew his days with the Eagles were numbered when Brian Dawkins was allowed to leave. Even though Andy Reid told anyone who would listen that he saw McNabb quarterbacking his team for the foreseeable future, McNabb knew otherwise. Reid was creating an oil slick on the surface to try and create a diversion of sorts.
 
“We knew it was going on from the beginning,” McNabb said about the trade talks by the Eagles.

“For you not to bring Brian Dawkins back, that (says) we're all replaceable," McNabb said. “I'm a part of it this year. They’re rebuilding, and they're going young. I never knew 33 was old, but I guess I'm old.” 

The Eagles rebuilding? At 10-4, they sure have a funny way of doing it.
 
Better yet, McNabb was telling us how much better it was going to be now that he was finally out of Philly.
 
“You guys from Philly don’t know much about the running game,” he said with one of those grins that makes it seem like a joke, but it’s really a dig. “We will run the ball here.”
 
Yeah, how did that work out?

The best parts were when McNabb copped the Mark McGwire act and said he didn’t want to talk about the past. Football is a team game with 11 men on each side and one man didn’t make a huge difference, McNabb said. But in the next breath he told us how great the Eagles became when they smartly took him with the No. 2 pick in the 1999 draft.
 
“I came to a team that was 3-13 and we went 5-11 (his rookie year) and then average nine of 10 wins a year and made it to five NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl, and not many teams can say that,” McNabb said. “Yes, we didn't win it, but it was a good ride. Every time the Eagles stepped on the field, everybody felt confident we could win that one, and I want to bring that here.” 
 
Or, more succinctly: you’re welcome, Eagles. It was me that made you guys look better.

He was never more right about that than this year. Funny how things play out.

Things that happened that we saw

• Gilbert Arenas fired his six-shooters for the last time of the 2009-10 season in Philadelphia last January. Before the game, Sixers’ coach Eddie Jordan actually said: "The impression I have him is he’s a heckuva three-point shooter, he drives to the basket and he hurt us a lot down there the last time we played them, and he’s an assassin on the floor—he’s a really good player and that’s what we have to prepare for," Jordan said.

  As he walked away, Jordan thought for a quick second and said to no one in particular.

  “I probably should have used another word than 'assassin.'”

• In February they had the Wing Bowl again for some reason. Snooki showed up and people had mass quantities of food.

• The beginning of March saw the end of the winter Olympics, highlighted by the gold-medal hockey game where Canada beat the U.S. Also during March, it was suggested that the Phillies were going to trade Ryan Howard to the Cardinals for Albert Pujols.

• Philadelphia jumped into Major League Soccer when the Philadelphia Union made their debut in April.

• In May, the Phillies could not score a run, a kid got tasered and Mike Meech went on a hunger strike. Floyd Landis also came clean about his past in professional cycling and outed Lance Armstrong as a PED user. This one is sure to heat up big time in 2011. Sadly, the great Robin Roberts died at age 83.

• Tiger Woods brought his golf tournament, as well as some of the best golfers in the world, to Aronimink in Newtown Square. The World Cup mesmerized everyone, and Stephen Strasburg made an incredible big league debut in Washington.

• Dom Brown made it to the Majors in July and hit a double in his first at-bat. The Phillies traded for Roy Oswalt and notorious Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner died.

• In August, Stephen Strasburg pitched his last game in Philadelphia before heading off to Tommy John surgery.

• Brad Lidge capped off a strong season in September, while the Phillies clinched their fourth straight division title and finished the season with the best record in baseball for the first time.

• In October, Jayson Werth played his last game for the Phillies, Roy Halladay threw another no-hitter, Cliff Lee dominated for a little while, and the Giants got to the World Series.

• November saw what is likely to be the end of Jamie Moyer’s career, the beginning of the destruction of the Spectrum and Halladay won the Cy Young Award. Meanwhile, the Giants won the World Series even though Pat Burrell was horrible, and baseball great Sparky Anderson died.

• December? We’ll let you figure that one out.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 8

One of the themes that is repeated often on this site isthe notion that some folks should not have to follow others. For instance, during one tour in the 1960s, The Monkees hired Jimi Hendrix to open for them and, famously, Jimi refused to open for The Who at Monterrey.

Needless to say, fans of The Monkees hated Jimi. Obviously, they weren’t ready for that yet.

Here at The Podcast of Awesomeness, we actually learn from history. We know we better than to go on after Hendrix, especially when we know he’s going to set his guitar on fire and smash it into a Marshall stack.

In this scenario my old friend Beth Shuba is our Jimi Hendrix. We knew we didn’t have the chops to follow her sordid tale about soccer and the female anatomy so we simply went underground for a week. We couldn’t top it, so we just let it go…

Actually, that’s not true. Donovan McNabb got traded and a one-day trip to Washington ended up lasting nearly a week. Moreover, while in D.C. I ran into frequent PoA guest, Chris Wilson, who was there on the tail end of the first leg of the Brutalist Bricks tour with his band Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. The plan to record the show back in Philadelphia at noon was postponed when Chris and I went searching for an all night bingo parlor.

Luck was not on our side since we didn't get to play bingo, but at least we found a place to help us stay hydrated.

Nevertheless, a week on the shelf still hasn’t been enough to erase Beth’s harrowing tale from our memory banks. It’s still burned in there and likely will be for the rest of our lives. Beth is like a rash in that sense.

We forged ahead anyway and acquitted ourselves reasonably well. At least that’s the way it sounded in the moment as we recorded the show. Why don’t you listen for yourself?

Download Awesome No. 8

We must mention that the eighth episode was the very last one we recorded in the office/studio on the penthouse level in the Wachovia Center of the lonely floor we called home for the past couple of years. It seems as if our little space has been earmarked for better use, so we’re homeless.

In other words, if someone has a space we can use for an hour or so in order to record our little dog-and-pony show, send a shout. We’ll be right over.

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Piling on (and then some)

WASHINGTON—Initially I came down here to The District to write about baseball, but that all kind of took a back seat as soon as I exited 295 and drove over the bridge crossing the Anacostia. Since then it’s been pretty much all Donovan all the time.

But that’s over now. We’ll pick it back up next September when the Redskins and Eagles face off. It’s sure to be a mind-numbingly tiresome huge deal even though Donovan says playing against the Eagles won’t be any different than going against the Giants or Cowboys.

Yeah, right.

So baseball… the Phillies opened up the season on Monday at Nationals Park and it went quite well. Roy Halladay pitched well and Placido Polanco hit a grand slam and got six RBIs in the 11-1 victory. The President of the United States also showed up, which no matter how many times you see it is always cool.

All in all it was a pretty good day.

But to be fair, it was the Nationals, a team that has a pretty decent lineup but paper-thin pitching. With 18 games a season against Washington, the Phillies should do quite well in padding their stats.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t so much the number of runs the Phillies scored in Monday’s opener as it was the way they were scored. They came like a bolt of lightning and in all sorts of unique ways. Sure, there were two homers that accounted for six of the runs (Ryan Howard hit a two-run BOMB in the five-run fourth), but before Polanco’s slam put the cherry on top there was plenty of manufacturing out there.

For instance, the Phillies scored runs on a sacrifice fly, and a swinging bunt from Halladay. They drew walks and made the Nats pay for them, got a RBI triple from Jimmy Rollins, and even scored a pair of runs on the old-fashioned single with a man on base.

Sure, the Phillies stranded 11 runners, but a 5-for-14 with runners in scoring position is nothing to scoff at.

“Philly is a tough team to stop once they get the momentum,” said losing pitcher John Lannan of his run-in with the hitters, Monday. “The momentum kept on going, and I couldn't stop it.”

Momentum, as grizzly old baseball guys like to say, is only as good as the next day’s pitcher. For the Phillies that is Cole Hamels on Wednesday night and Kyle Kendrick on Thursday afternoon. Joe Blanton, the regular No. 3 man, is on the DL and 47-year old Jamie Moyer, who spent the off-season having surgery, is the fifth guy.

Lefty J.A. Happ is wedged between Kendrick and Moyer and is starting his second full season in the Majors. Who knows if the hitters have figured him out yet?

Then there is a team’s bullpen that needs some reinforcements with Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero on the shelf. Yes, there are some question marks.

Still, with 18 games scheduled against the Nats and 34 starts penciled in for Halladay, the Phillies have no excuses if they don’t win the NL East for a fourth straight season. In fact, we’re going to ahead and predict that right now.

Here’s how it will shake out without any annoying analysis from some know-it-all.

NL East
Phillies
Braves
Marlins
Mets
Nationals

NL Central
Cardinals
Brewers
Cubs
Reds
Astros
Pirates

NL West
Rockies
Giants
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Padres

NLDS
Phillies beat Rockies
Cardinals beat Braves

NLCS
Phillies beat Cardinals

MVP: Pedro Martinez

We’ll just leave it at that for the time being. Sure, there’s an American League and all, but it takes way too long to watch those games. It’s a little ridiculous how long it takes those games to complete. But instead of leaving you in the lurch, just go ahead and pick one of the AL East teams (as long as it’s not Baltimore or Toronto) to go to the World Series.

D.C. Donovan says hello to new team

ASHBURN, Va. — It was kind of like seeing an old girlfriendwho unceremoniously dumped you out in public for the first time. Worse, there she was with arm around your best friend.
 
Make that your former best friend.
 
Yes, the Redskins introduced their new starting quarterback, Donovan McNabb, to the D.C. sporting press at the creatively named Redskin Park on Tuesday afternoon at a press conference that could aptly be described as tense or standoffish. Oh sure, there were attempts to put on a happy face and to say the right thing to placate those left behind and those waiting there with outspread arms for a giant, bear-like hug, but the animosity was as thick as the swampy, humid D.C. air.
 
If there were any doubts they are gone now – it’s so over!
 
How’s this for it being so over: the Redskins’ public relations staff informed a few of the folks in the Philly press that McNabb would be unavailable for side interviews with them. Oh, it was cool if the D.C. scribes chatted up the new Redskins quarterback, but the gang from Philadelphia was treated as if they were little rats that escaped from the maze. If not confined they could infest the joint and then what?
 
No, it’s better to keep them in a windowless room with shaky internet access and no beverages.
 
That was the least of where the tension was most palpable. After all, no one cares about how the media is treated… least of all, the media.[1] Instead, McNabb, like Mark McGwire once said during an interview in Washington, was not there to talk about the past. Besides, he said, it wasn’t about him when he was playing for the Eagles. Football is a team game with 11 players on each side of the ball, he explained. The quarterback is just one of those 11 guys, he told us.
 
But in the next breath he told us how great the Eagles became when they smartly took him with the No. 2 pick in the 1999 draft.
 
“I came to a team that was 3-13 and we went 5-11 (his rookie year) and then average nine of 10 wins a year and made it to five NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl, and not many teams can say that,” McNabb said. “Yes, we didn't win it, but it was a good ride. Every time the Eagles stepped on the field, everybody felt confident we could win that one, and I want to bring that here.”
 
Or, more succinctly: you’re welcome, Eagles. It was me that made you guys look better, he seemed to be saying.
 
That’s debatable, of course, and surely the folks in Philly will dive into that fray for as long as the Eagles continue their championship drought that is now in its 50th year. But what is not debatable is the idea that McNabb wanted to stay in Philadelphia. Why wouldn’t he? He was comfortable there and he knew his way around. He knew where all the good restaurants were and where he could go and not be bothered. Most of all, there appears to be a correlation to the specific greatness of a quarterback if he makes it through a career on just one team. Elway did that. So did Marino, Aikman, Staubach and Bradshaw, to name a few Hall-of-Famers whose career stats match up with McNabb’s.
 
“I've always believed in finishing where you start,” McNabb said during the main presser (not the side one with the D.C. guys). “There’s a lot to be said for that. Not a lot of quarterbacks are able to do that these days. But sometimes change is better. Sometimes you're forced into change.”
 
Ah yes. Change. Apparently that was what everyone was looking for when McNabb was dealt away to the Redskins on Easter Sunday night, a mere 16 hours before the Phillies were to open the season in Washington. Sure, McNabb says, he really wanted to finish his career with the Eagles and try to win that elusive championship for the “gold standard” of franchises. But things are different now. The Eagles are going in a different direction. Nothing lasts forever.
 
McNabb says he knew his days with the Eagles were likely numbered when Brian Dawkins was allowed to leave. Sure, coach Andy Reid told anyone who would listen that he saw McNabb quarterbacking his team for the foreseeable future, but McNabb knew otherwise. Reid was creating an oil slick on the surface to try and create a diversion of sorts.
 
“We knew it was going on from the beginning,” McNabb said about the trade talks by the Eagles.
 
Gone are Brian Westbrook, Kevin Curtis, Shawn Andrews, Sheldon Brown and, of course, Dawkins.
 
“For you not to bring Brian Dawkins back, that (says) we're all replaceable," McNabb said. “I'm a part of it this year. They’re rebuilding, and they're going young. I never knew 33 was old, but I guess I'm old.”
 
Old news for sure. Yes, McNabb is with someone new – someone we know all too well. Worse, he’s telling us how great things are going to be now that we’re finally gone.
 
It doesn’t hurt as much as it makes you mad.
 
“You guys from Philly don’t know much about the running game,” he said with one of those grins that makes it seem like a joke, but it’s really a dig. “We will run the ball here.”
 
Yeah, well, good luck with that.

________________________________________
[1] But it is funny. Go ahead and admit that it’s funny. Who doesn’t love to hear press types whine about their jobs? “Oh my goodness they are making me travel to new places and to see new things to write and report about sports. Can you believe that? And they have the nerve to pay me for it.” Yes that was sarcasm, and yes it would have been easier to just to write, “Hey guys, stop whining. If you don’t like traveling around to report on sports, I hear they’re hiring at the post office ”

Talk about timing...

WASHINGTON—If there was ever a spot for a good conspiracy theory, why not start it in Washington, D.C.? After all, this is the city where they eat a good conspiracy theory for breakfast. They invented all that stuff here, for crying out loud.

Better yet, Washington and conspiracy theories are a cottage industry within itself. How many books or movies have been produced about the shadowy elements of our government? Washington and conspiracies go hand in hand.

So while standing in line to wait for the Secret Service to search through my belongings, I broached the subject of the timing of the announcement of the Eagles’ trade of Donovan McNabb to the Redskins with a few employees of the Phillies, who will remain nameless. No, they didn’t believe it was a conspiracy, per se, but the timing was questionable.

Why else would the Eagles announce the biggest trade in their history at 8:30 p.m. on Easter Sunday the day before the Phillies were to begin their season with the pitcher acquired in the biggest trade in recent team history on the mound?

And oh yeah, the President of the United States was also going to be at the Phillies’ game, too.

Still, the idea that the Eagles would release huge news just so it would trump the Phillies seems silly. It’s like a petty stunt a fifth-grader would pull if he found out a classmate had the coolest Power Ranger or something. Besides, don’t the Eagles come out of that situation looking worse if it were the case?

“They’ll say otherwise, but there is no question they did this on purpose,” said a Phillies’ employee.

The Eagles’ brass on declared themselves the, “gold standard” amongst franchises in sports, which is curious thing considering they are now in their 50th season without a championship. To make such a proclamation doesn’t team have to win it all at least once?

Better yet, shouldn’t the so-called “gold standard” be above such petty jealousies?

“It killed them when we won it,” a Phillies employee said. “They thought it was going to be them, but we got it done first.”

Coincidentally, some of the sports fans in D.C. suggested that the timing of the trade was the Redskins’ attempt to steal some of the spotlight away from the Capitals, who had just set the franchise for wins a few hours earlier. The Caps also are running away with the Eastern Conference title and appear to be poised to make a legit run at the Stanley Cup, which is a big deal around these parts.

However, the thing about the sports scene in D.C. is that if a player for the Redskins stubs a toe, it’s big news. Still, that doesn’t remove notion that the ‘Skins aren’t above upstaging the other teams in the city. In fact, the day that the Nationals signed top draft pick Stephen Strasburg, the Redskins felt as if that was the perfect time to release some minor quarterback news.

The funny part about it all is that apparently some believe sports fans have the time and appetite for just one sports story a day. Given the landscape of the digital news world, nothing could be further from the truth. Just because the Eagles made a trade with the Redskins it does not mean the Phillies’ Opening Day game will go unnoticed.

Just look at the media landscape as if it were the most opulent buffet in Las Vegas—you can have as much as whatever you want.

Or you could just choose to ignore it all… especially the part about there being some sort of a conspiracy.

Weird, but not unprecedented

WASHINGTON—A normally staid holiday night took an odd turn for the folks driving into The District and listening to WTOP. Usually serving up programming that is reserved for the news that dominates the nation’s capital, the measured and professional tenor of the news anchor shifted almost dramatically.

News on an Easter earthquake on the Baja Peninsula south of Los Angeles and San Diego, as well speculation regarding the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was pushed back suddenly so that sports news could be reported.

That was strange enough considering Washington isn’t known as a diehard sports town. After all, the city has already lost two baseball teams and is working hard to drive out a third. The Washington Wizards are struggling and though they might have the best team in the NHL, the Washington Capitals don’t get much attention outside of the Beltway.

But the Washington Redskins is the second most passionate pastime in this industry town. Like movies in Hollywood, politics rules in Washington. After that comes the Redskins. Hell, even Nixon followed the Redskins religiously and he had a pretty demanding job.

So maybe it’s understandable that the possible retirement of a Supreme Court Justice could be placed on the backburner so the news on the trade of quarterback Donovan McNabb to the Redskins could be reported.

You should have heard the glee coming from the announcer’s voice. The Washington Redskins had an All-Pro quarterback coming to town with new coach Mike Shanahan and all they had to give up was a couple of draft picks.

Everyone was too excited and/or stunned here in Washington to make a cogent analysis of the fact that McNabb was going to be the quarterback of the Redskins. No one could believe that the trade came down somewhat late on a holiday Sunday the day before President Barack Obama was scheduled to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the Phillies’ season opener in Washington on Monday afternoon. And oh yeah, it’s also the game where the Phillies’ most-ballyhooed off-season acquisition in generations will make his debut.

Roy Halladay, welcome to Page 2.

A good distance out of the range of Philly sports media, I can only guess that a bunch of folks had the same reaction as me when the trade news started to trickle out. Were the Eagles really trying to sneak this by us, was my first thought. News doesn’t get hidden anymore in the digital world. We have Facebook and Twitter and all sorts of ways to network and multitask. 

Surely the Eagles’ brass wasn’t thinking about slipping it past us, were they?

Maybe after the shock wears off the folks in DC will start to ask questions about what the trade means. For instance, what happens with Jason Campbell? Or, how much will McNabb improve as a quarterback on a team with a coach that’s committed to running the ball. After all, Shanahan won the Super Bowl twice with an aged John Elway thanks largely to the fact that he had Terrell Davis eating up yardage.

Eventually maybe the DC sports fans will ask why the Eagles traded a starting quarterback to a team in their own division. In fact, even Eagles’ receiver DeSean Jackson told ESPN news that the trade to a divisional foe was a head scratcher.

“It's kinda weird him being traded in the same division...” Jackson said on ESPN News.

Weird, but not exactly unprecedented. There were plenty of Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks dealt away from the team they are most known for playing with. Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana ended up with other teams. In fact, in 1964 the Eagles traded Sonny Jurgensen to the Redskins. Once he was out of Philadelphia, Jurgensen solidified his standing as one of the all-time greats and even went to the Super Bowl.

Of course the biggest difference between Jurgensen and McNabb is that Jurgensen won a championship in Philadelphia before he was traded to Washington.

Stop making sense

For a guy who drives great distances to get to work/games, I really don’t listen to sports talking on the radio. There are many reasons for this and none of them are an indictment on the genre itself. Hey, people like to talk about sports and they like to listen to the radio when they drive. It’s a happy marriage.

But it’s not really a mode of communication one can sink their teeth into. That’s not a knock on sports talking radio, it’s just the way it is. See, sports radio happens in real time. It’s a continuous thing that exists for a second and then blows away in the wind, kind of like real life or something metaphysical like that.

However, the topics discussed are singular, static moments. Sports news happens and then that’s it. So in order to discuss certain topics, speculation and referencing “sources” often pushes the conversation. Come on… if you’re just putting the news out there and allowing it to stand by itself, it doesn’t make for a great time, does it?

Still, it all makes my head hurt. It’s like eating Fruity Pebbles all the time instead of going for something healthy. Look, I like Fruity Pebbles as much as the next guy and I could eat it all day. However, if I do that for too long it’s going to have a serious affect. It might even kill me, not unlike that movie where that dude went around eating McDonald’s morning, noon and night. After a day or two it stopped being fun or even funny.

Nevertheless, it’s kind of like when some huge real-life news occurs and everyone dials up CNN or MSNBC or something (I’d say FoxNews, but you know…) to find out what’s going on. Apparently the Eagles were/are on the verge of trading Donovan McNabb, which is kind of like a historical moment for the Philadelphia sporting scene. It’s a really big deal, to say the least.

So I dialed it up for the ride home and strangely it took only five minutes for my head to start hurting.

Again, that’s no fault of the medium, the hosts or the genre. It’s just that there isn’t a lot of real information out there aside from the stuff coming from “sources.” Having spent a large portion of my adult life mingling with “sources,” I understand that those dudes will say anything. Sometimes they even know what they’re talking about, too. In fact, my “sources” are usually more right than wrong, but that’s only with what I tell other people. Some of the crazier things they trot out there are really freakin’ crazy.

Whew! I can’t wait to write that book.

Anyway, my head was spinning from all the teams and speculation on other teams that weren’t named by “sources.” There were the Rams, Raiders and Vikings. There were first-round draft picks and defensive backs speculated upon. Legacies both past and present were bandied about.

It was a big mess and it made my head hurt.

After listening from approximately the time it took to get from the Wachovia Center to the part on the Expressway where it seems like eight lanes converge into one with the Art Museum looming above the psychotic automotive mess, I was done. I tapped out, but not for the reason most would think. It was for another reason of my own creation and one that needed me to quiet things down with some podcasts of Terry Gross’ show, “Fresh Air.”

Has there ever been a radio program so aptly named?

So what was the thought that sent me scrambling for the dial with one hand while using the other to steer into rush hour traffic on the Schuylkill? OK, try this out…

What happens if Donovan McNabb comes back to the Eagles next season? Really, what happens then?

It seems as if we are so resigned to the fact that McNabb will be traded away soon that we could forget the notion that we really don’t know what’s happening. Yes, the guys reporting on the story are doing terrific work and are finding out facts that have helped it all make sense. Still, when sports executives say something in front of recorders, microphones and cameras, it really should be taken with a grain of salt or whatever it is one takes when they converse with someone known for being less than truthful.

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that McNabb will be introduced as the starting quarterback for the Eagles in the home opener next September. And if that happens, what then?

How will the fans react? How will the media types react?

Better yet, what will a return by McNabb mean for Andy Reid and the Eagles? After all, there was a reason why quarterback Kevin Kolb was selected with a second-round draft pick, just as there was a reason why the team signed Michael Vick. If the Eagles are simply going to keep McNabb, what was it Reid and the gang were doing when they got those other quarterbacks?

Really, what were they thinking?

That’s why it won’t be a huge shock if nothing happens. No one really knows what goes through those heads they have over there at the NovaCare complex. Maybe they just really, really like the attention, which is why they are allowing this mess to drag out as long as it has. Actually, it seems as if there ought to be smoke coming out of the top of the place as if they were electing a pope.

Who’s the new (or old) guy? Apparently any guess is as good as anything.

The warm-up act

The early reports indicate that Super Bowl 44 was thehighest rated version of the game ever. If that’s the case, it will surpass the 1982 Super Bowl, which was seen in 49 percent of U.S. households for a 73 percent share, the Saints-Colts game could rank up there with the most-watched TV events ever.

There’s the last M.A.S.H., the “Who Shot J.R.?” Dallas episode, Roots and probably Super Bowl 44.

Perhaps adding to the allure of watching the game was the proliferation of social media, the Internet and all that stuff. These days a guy can have a Super Bowl party with all his friends and followers without traveling anywhere. And based on how the roads look after the big snowstorm that walloped us, we weren’t getting too far anyway.

Besides, who wants to be in the same room with half of those people anyway… I keed, I keed.

Anyway, back in my day when MTV and ESPN first came out and we went from 12 channels with a dial to 30 channels with a space-age remote, Super Bowl Sunday meant a day filled with tons of good sports matchups. In fact, I recall a Sixers-Celtics and Celtics-Lakers matchup as an appetizer for the big game. For geeks like me it was pretty fun to watch Doc, Moses, Andrew Toney, Larry Bird, etc., etc. before the biggest sporting event of the year. Often the NBA games were even better than the Super Bowl.

These days, though, there are 900 channels, on-demand, in-demand, DVR, TiVo, YouTube, Hulu, and whatever else you need to watch whatever you want whenever you want. Who can keep up? Moreover, the ratings are never going to be accurate—if they ever were in the first place.

Nevertheless, harkening back to those halcyon days when Super Bowl Sundays were spent with Kevin McHale and Joe Montana, I figured the lead-ins to the big game were worth a look again. Why not? I was already snowed in and didn’t feel like traipsing through our winter wonderland.

So after waking up at the crack of noon[1], the first stop on the TV was the NFL Network where they were set up at a desk on the field a good seven hours before kick-off. Even stranger than that, there was a whole bunch of hired heads yapping about the game from a whole bunch of different desks located around the stadium. The main desk, of course, had Rich Eisen at the head chair with Marshall Faulk, Steve Mariucci and Michael Irvin.

Across the field from the main desk was a blonde-haired woman with long hair that got all entangled in the wind whipping through the stadium. I probably wouldn’t have cared if she didn’t spend at least 30 seconds of TV time yapping about it as if the wind were literally spitting on her. In TV, 30 seconds is an eternity, but considering the NFL Network had more than six hours to fill the wind was as topical as anything else.

Still, the silliest part about the wind/hair/curses-to-Mother Nature was how the blonde-haired TV woman thought the development of strong morning breezes could have some affect on the passing attack for the Colts and Saints in the game. You know, because weather never changes in the span of six hours. If it’s windy when TV lady is on the scene, well by golly, it will be windy when everyone else is there, too.

Of course the big topics were reserved for Eisen and his crew on the other side of the field. That only makes sense considering there was only one meaningful topic, which they proceeded to pulverize with plenty of ancillary bantering between the panel because the game did not start for another six hours. Then, of course, Eisen ran things because he was the only guy there who did not play or coach in the NFL yet still was e-mailed bikini photos of that former anchor woman in Philly[2]. That makes Rich Eisen a hero to dweeby sports geeks everywhere and sends an important message…

Stay in school, kids. Study up on those important facts and sports reference material. Watch plenty of games and skip class if you must, but by all means, stay in school. You too can be just like Rich Eisen and hang with some ex-football players where you will spend the better part of six hours discussing Dwight Freeney’s ankle on a sun and wind-swept afternoon in Miami.

Good times!

But way too crazy for me. I needed to pace myself if I was going to make to kick-off so it was off to investigate what else was out there in the wonderland known as cable television. Better yet, I settled onto the MLB Network just in time to pick up Game 5 of the 2008 World Series exactly where it picked up after the two-day rain suspension. You remember the first part of the game, right? That’s the part where it rained so hard during the action that it could only be properly summed up by a soaking wet Ryan Howard after the stoppage in play when he told me it was a, “bleeping bleep show.”

How right he was.

Since I never saw the completion of Game 5 of the 2008 World Series except for in actual real time, I settled in to watch. Only this time I did it without the threat of having to go straight to the airport and to Tampa afterwards. It was much more enjoyable and relaxing this way.

But here’s what I don’t get:

Why did Joe Maddon leave the lefty J.P. Howell in to hit and then pitch to righty Pat Burrell to start the seventh? Burrell, of course, hit that double that just missed landing in the seats and then immediately took him out for a righty to face a switch-hitter and two straight right-handers? I thought Maddon was a genius?

Anyway, we all remember what happened from there and since they cut away before the clubhouse and field celebration—thus eliminating a chance for me to see myself lurking in the background like an idiot—it was time to move on…

… to a Duke-North Carolina match-up from 1988 when the Tar Heels were rated No. 2 in the country and Duke was on the way to a Final Four appearance. Oh yes, they were all there: Danny Ferry with hair, Quinn Snyder all skinny and point-guardy. There was J.R. Reid with that flat top, Rick Fox in short shorts, and Jeff Lebo from Carlisle, Pa. where he and Billy Owens won the state championship.

Yes, Dean Smith was there, too, along with Coach K still looking as rat-faced as ever. But what was the most interesting was catching a glimpse of Billy King when he was a school boy with Duke. We all remember Billy, right? The Sixers’ slick and stylish GM, who given the current state of the franchise, might not have been doing too badly. Nevertheless, in 1988 King didn’t have those chic thin glasses or the neat clean-shaven head like he did when he was running the Sixers. Instead he had a mustache that would have made Billy D. envious and a flat top that fit perfectly with the trendiness of 1988.

But Ferry, the current GM for the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers, ran things for Duke back then. With Kevin Strickland and Ferry combining for 41 points, Duke got a 70-69 victory in their first of three wins over Carolina that season.

But Billy King’s mustache and haircut can only pique one’s interest for so long. It was Super Bowl Sunday, after all, and kick-off was quickly approaching. It was time to prepare, so I checked on the veggie chili I had simmering on the stove top, poured myself a tall glass of iced tea, and flipped the dial back to the NFL Network for any last minute insight.

Instead I got a whole bunch of yelling and a lot of goofing off.

Seemingly holding down the fort as if in some sort of sadistic dance marathon, Eisen was sitting there in Miami grinning like a goon as Mariucci and Irvin were shouting overly wrought football points about topics no one could decipher. Actually, Irvin dropped into some sort of loud, pontification worthy of the finest antebellum preacher or Stephen A. Smith marked with a ridiculously loud over-enunciation usually reserved for people trying to sell you a mop on TV or folks who just have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. Why shout and put on such an over-the-top show if you have the facts cold? If it’s true, it doesn’t have to be sold. The truth sells and I’m buying. Only I didn’t buy any of this[3].

Just the facts, guys.

Oh, but if you wanted to hear Irvin really get loud, all you had to do was wait for Adam Sandler, David Spade, Kevin James, Rob Schneider and Chris Rock take over the set to talk about some movie they have coming out sometime soon. Aside from being the typical comedians-interviewed-at-the-Super-Bowl bit, the only trenchant part came when Spade astutely replied to Eisen’s query of a prediction with, “No one cares what we think about football.”

That David Spade is a wise one.

Then again maybe that’s not entirely true. Maybe that depends on what those guys actually have to say about football. Take Chris Rock, for instance. After the group interview with the funny guys, Rock gave a private interview with Deion Sanders in director’s chairs near the field because… well, because he’s Chris Rock. And aside from explaining to Deion that he was no Juan Pierre during his baseball days, Rock dropped this nugget when asked who his favorite player was.

“Donovan,” Rock said.

In the history of the NFL there have only been nine guys with the name, “Donovan.” Chances are Chris Rock was not talking about Art Donovan, the Hall-of-Fame tackle for the Baltimore Colts during the 1950s. Making it easier to deduce that this “Donovan” character was indeed, Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles, came when Prime Time asked why Donovan was his favorite player.

“He wins like a man and loses like a man. … He takes responsibility,” Rock said.

Interesting, huh?

Chris Rock is a tough act to follow so just before heading off to a pre-game nap, I flipped to CBS just in time to see host James Brown tell analyst Dan Marino that the road leading to the stadium in Miami was, “Dan Marino Blvd.”

Judging from Dan’s expression upon hearing that news, it looked as if the ol’ QB took had taken a few wrong exits off that road in the past.

---

[1] No, not really. I just love that expression and the humor that comes with sloth.

[2] For the life of me I can’t remember her name. Alycia was it? Does it matter? Is there a difference?

[3] The only way Irvin could have sold me is if he would have twisted his mustache and wore a bowler hat like an evil spy. Otherwise, it’s just yelling.

Let the McNabb trade talk begin

It's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where the newly retired Kurt Warner will not be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If they haven't begun casting the mold for his bust yet, maybe it's time to start pretty soon. Sure, the sculptor has some time but why procrastinate? Go ahead and knock it out already.

And perhaps while folks are mulling over Warner's body of work as a quarterback of the Cardinals, Rams, and in the Arena Football League, as well as a stock boy at some grocery in Iowa, maybe the speculation can begin in earnest regarding his replacement in Arizona.

Is it time to start the Donovan McNabb trade watch already? We don’t have to wait for Brett Favre to decide something, do we?

Long before the Eagles were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in Dallas way back at the beginning of the month, it appeared the best fit for McNabb just might be as a replacement for Warner or Favre rather than with the Eagles. With the Cardinals McNabb could step right in as the veteran leader with a high-powered offense that thrived with Warner. Better yet, after games and practices McNabb could turn his off-season home into his year-round pad. That certainly makes it a win-win.

With the Vikings McNabb could reunite with coach Brad Childress, who was the offensive coordinator with the Eagles during the quarterback’s best seasons. Where could he go wrong? The Cardinals are a season removed from nearly winning the Super Bowl followed by a solid playoff run, while the Vikings were a late-game meltdown away from winning the NFC Championship over the Saints.

It’s either go somewhere else with a talented team looking to take the proverbial next step or stay in Philadelphia where he can continue pounding his head against the wall like we all have for the past decade.

It’s an easy decision for everyone, right? The Vikings or Cardinals can plug in a seasoned All-Pro and the Eagles can focus on the future with Kevin Kolb, the quarterback they drafted in the second round in 2007. With McNabb in the last year of his current deal with the Eagles and asking for an extension, all that’s left is to figure on the partner, the price and then send out the press release.

Let’s get moving already…

As we know all too well it’s the easy decisions that are often the trickiest and most troublesome. Of course, as we also have seen over the past decade, any decision for the Eagles always dissolves into a circus wrapped manically inside of a soap opera. Can Joe Banner or Andy Reid ever come to a conclusion without everyone overreacting? Are we that sensitive or is it that we just can't help ourselves? Or maybe it's because we don't trust them. Sure, most of the decisions to let players go have been the right ones, but they still don't have much to show for it.

Besides, even when the Eagles make the most mundane decision it’s like watching the clown car crash into the bearded lady.

Of course the report that the Cardinals are going to turn over the quarterback gig over to Matt Leinart as well as McNabb’s consultation with his psychic only adds to the intrigue. After all, just because a pro sports general manager and Miss Cleo say something doesn’t make it completely true. We’re working from years of experience here and have learned that whatever becomes McNabb’s fate for the 2010 season, it will occur slowly and sloppily.

Yes, we read McNabb’s comments in the Inquirer claiming he would return to Philadelphia because coach Andy Reid told him so.

“That’s all that matters,” McNabb told The Inquirer. “I heard it when he said it to you guys, but I heard it before anyway. I think a lot of people look too far into things with all the assumptions and this could happen. He told everybody I'm going to be there, and I'm his guy. I don’t see anything that anybody should look into.”

Nobody believes McNabb is as naïve as that last sentence sounds. He knows all too well how people around these parts act when it comes to the football team. Considering it’s been a half-century since the Eagles have won a championship, what else is there to look into?

Arizona, Minnesota, Philadelphia? Yeah, this is just getting started.

Brett Favre is the greatest quarterback ever

Go ahead, admit it… you love Brett Favre. It’s OK to say it. It’s cathartic even. Seriously, do it:

I love you, Brett Favre!

See how easy that was?

The strange thing about this is that I even had to say it at all. Why wouldn’t everyone blather on about the gunslingin’ quarterback who just loves to play the game? Really, he just has fun out there. Besides, it’s impossible to write a sentence about Brett Favre without using the word, “just.”

Here’s the thing that’s just so lovable about Brett Favre (two names, please) — he always, always, always delivers. Every time. He’s like Michael Jordan that way. Tiger Woods, too. Whenever we need something in a football game, Brett Favre makes sure we get it.

Some say Brett Favre is overrated as a quarterback. OK, that might be true when talking about the actual quarterbacking skills. Throughout his career, Brett Favre has had 96 games in which he has thrown at least two interceptions, and seven games in which he has thrown at least four interceptions. Brett Favre has also been to the conference championship five times and has one more win than Donovan McNabb (one more Super Bowl victory, too).

So when it comes to the stats and his performance in big playoff games, yeah, Brett Favre might be a bit overrated. But then again, aren’t we all?

The truth is Brett Favre is completely underrated when it comes to the true essence of the NFL. In terms of the entertainment dollar, no one beats Brett Favre. Sure, Peyton Manning comes close, but that’s like comparing Superman to Batman. Superman can make the earth spin in reverse on its axis because he’s not even an earthling. He’s a mild-mannered freak from another planet and he flies. Superman is not perfect, but he rarely makes the same mistake twice.

Batman is human. He has hubris and vices. He falls down and gets concussions and still figures out how to go back to work only to repeat the entire process again.

Certainly the “humanness” of Brett Favre has been waxed upon for decades. There’s no new material there and in our selfish, mundanity of our everyday lives, we look at the rehashing of Brett Favre’s story as if it’s just another TV repeat. Worse, in this case the Brett Favre show isn’t even in syndication.

However, no one ever talks about how spectacularly Brett Favre fails. Sure, some quarterbacks throw bad passes in important parts of the game. Sometimes passes are dropped and tackles are missed. You know, the same ol’, same ol’.

But when Brett Favre goes down it’s like that old-timey newsreel of the Hindenburg exploding. Some guys watch their seasons go down the drain with a kneel or a simple expiration of time. Not Brett Favre. He grabs a flamethrower, amps it up as high as it will go and burns it all to the ground.

And we should love him for it.

When it comes to putting on a great show, yes, Brett Favre is ridiculously underrated. Better yet, there is no middle ground with him—people have extreme emotions to one side or the other. Yet the thing about the folks who loathe Brett Favre (just the football player, I hope) is their emotions are wrong. Certainly that’s a difficult judgment to make about another person, but it’s true. You are all wrong about this guy.

He’s great because he’s never lets you down.

How many guys have ended the past three seasons for three different teams with interceptions? I don’t have the figures or the charts, but I’m guessing this feat has never been done in the history of the NFL. In fact, the costly interception that kept the Vikings out of the Super Bowl (again) and ruined two weeks of unadulterated Brett Favre media coverage wasn’t even the worst (shouldn’t that be best?) one. Frankly, the interception he threw against the Eagles at the Linc in the 2003 Divisional Playoff game was totally awesome.

Remember that one? It was set up by the 4th-and-26 reception by Freddie Mitchell from Donovan McNabb to send the game into overtime. Then, after winning the coin toss, Brett Favre took the first snap, dropped back and threw the ball so high and far into the air that it was like a punt. Brian Dawkins was standing by himself so far back in the secondary that it seemed as if he should have called for a fair catch on Brett Favre’s punt/interception toss.

It was the most inexplicable throw by a quarterback in the history of the game. It was like a game of all-tackle-one broke out in the middle of a playoff game.

Sure, like any addicts we have are enablers like Chris Berman of ESPN who goes on and on about Brett Favre with a voice that makes one want to drive an ice pick into their middle ear. But the truth is we’re really going to miss him. Perfection, as we’ve learned, is sometimes a façade and always boring.

Brett Favre was never perfect and never boring.

Who? No really, who?

When I was a kid I figured I heard Ronald Reagan’s name spoken every single day. Whether I consciously paid attention to hearing it, or simply caught it in passing, I was certain that a day had not passed without at least one utterance of that name.

I felt the same way about George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and now with Barack Obama. George W. Bush? Well, yeah, but mostly as a punch line.

Cable TV was more accessible during the Reagan years, which was the impetus of our media saturation and 24-hour connectivity. Of course no one foresaw the coming of the Internet during the Reagan years other than Doc Brown and Marty McFly, though they had the luxury of a time machine. And as we have learned, the Internet is the greatest invention since Tommy John surgery.

So Ronald Reagan taught me that everyday folks like to talk about people they will never, ever meet and/or don’t care a whit about them like a president, congressman, or Lady Gaga. Ina sense, the common man and the cultural star use each other. One uses the other to sell something which in turn forces the regular people to use the seller in a manner that makes them feel better about themselves. In other words, everybody wins.

Or do they? Since the gulf between the two factions grow with each passing TMZ post, each side digs in deeper and deeper. Agendas are forced with no regard for the other side. That’s just the way it happens when a group feels slighted.

In our little universe here in Philadelphia, Donovan McNabb is our new Ronald Reagan. Not a day passes when something is not spoken or written about the man or his importance and future to the professional football team in the city. Go ahead and comb through the daily stories about the Eagles on CSNPhilly.com or Philly.com and I’m positive there will be one mention of McNabb in something produced today. Turn on 610 or 950 and set an egg timer and wait…

Someone will say the words, “Donovan,” or “McNabb.”

The difficulty in this phenomenon is when a guy thinks he is part of one group, though in reality he is not. That’s where Mike Richards of the Flyers enters.

I get the feeling that Mike Richards could walk down Walnut Street and grab a seat in Rittenhouse Square and no one would bat an eye. Probably a shade below 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Richards looks just like any regular 24-year-old dude seen in the city. He probably blends in in Kenora, Ontario, too, which is probably why he thinks he can non-discretely go about his business in Philadelphia.

INSERT HEARTY LAUGH RIGHT HERE

What Richards might not get—or maybe he does, we don’t know—is that a $69 million contract and the captaincy of the beloved Flyers means he is not a regular dude. Yes, celebrity is both a blessing and a curse and it’s because of these reasons that he is clearly not amongst the regular-dude folk and because he is not “regular,” if he chooses not to talk to the media, for whatever reason, some folks are going to feel slighted or even angry. McNabb or Chase Utley might give obtuse, one-word answers to pointed questions from time to time, but after some prodding and long waits, at least he goes through the motions complete with a bemused grin and a placid stare on non-engagement.

It works for him.

Now I don’t know about the finer details of Richards’ tête-à-tête with the writers that cover the team on a daily basis. I also don’t know anything about Richards’ private life and what he does for fun.

I also don’t care.

Really…

I.

Don’t.

Care.

However, Richards can make his life a whole lot less complex if he figures out how to do things like Chase Utley or Donovan McNabb and mask his contempt for those commoners with a steady barrage of clichés and bleep-eating grins.

It's worth mentioning that the time McNabb told Terrell Owens to, "Keep my name out of your mouth..." That was awesome.

So now we’re talking about Mike Richards for a couple of days in a row. Better yet, some people may (or may not) have learned who he is because of the recent media storm. Probably not too many more, though. It’s not like he’s Donovan McNabb.

Nothing doing

It's easy to tell when there is nothing going on in the Philadelphia sporting scene. For one, media types begin to look at the blogs. Usually it's the other way around. Blogger types[1] need the professionals or else there wouldn't be any substance. It's the commentary or the parsing of the information that makes each so-called blogger unique. Or something like that... we generalize because we have nothing else to go on.

What? Do you think I'm going to dial up Conlin to ask what he thinks about the subject? He's too busy chasing the neighborhood kids off his lawn.

Anyway...

Yet when there is nothing going on and media types read those blogs, sometimes they react to something. Take Donovan McNabb, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance. As most folks who follow this sort of thing have come to learn, Donovan McNabb is a blogger, too. And like most bloggers Donovan McNabb reacts to the news being reported by the pros.

Hey, a guy needs to dig up material from somewhere.

Nevertheless, in reacting to news that the Eagles were 8-8 during the 2007, McNabb opined that his team just might need a few "weapons" in 2008. No big news there. After all, McNabb had pointed out as much after the Eagles beat the Buffalo Bills in the final game of the season on Dec. 30. That was nearly two weeks ago. But in a struggle to fill space on his Yardbarker.com page, McNabb reiterated the idea that the Eagles need "weapons."

Let's digress a bit and give the situation some perspective, because it really is a "situation." In most cities if the quarterback of an 8-8 team expressed a desire to add some better players to the team it might be met with a yawn or a rolling of the eyes with the comment, "Tell us something we don't know" attached to it. That's because in most cities 8-8 isn't very good. Actually, in a lot of cities the fans and media of the local football team would admit that most 10-6 teams have a little room for improvement. Hell, even the New England Patriots have areas where they can get better and they went 16-0. For one thing, the Patriots have to do a better job at not getting caught when spying on the opposition. That little misstep cost them a draft pick.

But in Philadelphia it isn't that the folks don't agree with the notion that the Eagles - an 8-8 team that was lucky to be 8-8 [2]- it's just that there isn't anything else going on. Sure, there are other sports teams in town, such as the punchless 76ers who are in the midst of a season-worst five-game losing streak. At their current rate, the Sixers could end up 31-51, which would put them right there with the Charlotte Bobcats.

There is also the Flyers in the NHL, who might be a team to make a little noise in the playoffs. The Flyers are a young team and prone to streaks as well as multiple-game suspensions for things like unsportsmanlike conduct. But let's not kid ourselves, it's hockey and this is the United States. It's not exactly a fringe sport (though the national television ratings indicate otherwise), but it's not the glitzy and glamorous Hollywood sport either. It's more like non-fiction book publishing.

College basketball is in full swing, too, but in a sports/media saturated market place it's hard to get excited about things like conference play until March. Mix that with folks settling back into routines following the holidays and the new year, as well as the fact that Philadelphia lacks the excitement outside of sports such as places like Washington (it's a presidential election year), New York (it's New York), Boston (the Patriots are streaking to the Super Bowl and the World Champion Red Sox report to spring training in five weeks) or Baltimore (The Wire kicked off its new season last week) and it's easy to see why a sigh or a leer from the quarterback of the local football team gets scrutinized.

How would have people reacted if McNabb wrote that the team was on the right track?

Perhaps he's trying to talk himself out of town?

How would his blogging have gone over if the Eagles finished the season 7-9?

Better yet, how would have folks reacted if he and the gang had gone on a trip to Mexico with Jessica Simpson?

---

[1] What? Do you think I'm excluding myself? Hey, I might be a jackass but I'm a self-aware jackass.[2] Not only were the Eagles lucky to be 8-8, but also they could have very easily won 10 games. The truth is that every other team in the NFC East was not very good.

Time to 'man up'

One of the topics missed yesterday was Cole Hamels’ three-inning outing in which he was held to a tight pitch count. The outing was Hamels’ first start in 32 days and needless to say, he wasn’t as sharp as he would have liked. But the bigger issue wasn’t that Hamels lasted just three innings and gave up three runs. The bigger issue was that the young lefty used up his 54 pitches in just three innings. Certainly that puts a heavy burden on a bullpen that doesn’t need any extra lifting, though perhaps this is a bad time to be faulting Hamels for being rusty in his first time out in over a month. After all, the relievers ended up allowing just one run in 11 innings in the 7-4 victory in St. Louis.

Still, if Hamels is going to make two more starts he’s going to have to be a little more efficient. Sure, he will probably throw approximately 75 pitches in Sunday’s start at RFK, but these days the Phillies need the starters to make the game shorter for the ‘pen. With 10 games to go, there will be more than enough heavy lifting to go around. If Hamels is serious about pitching this season, he should grab the big end. There will be plenty of time to rest up in the winter.

Besides, manager Charlie Manuel says it will take 89 to 90 victories to get into the playoffs. At 82-70, the Phillies will have to be pretty darn good in the final 10 games. At a minimum they have to win every remaining series…

They can start with a sweep in The District.

On the road again Speaking of The District, RFK is sure to be overrun with Phillies fans this weekend. In fact, I’ll wager that the Phillies fans outnumber the Nationals fans – if there is such a thing.

So for those making the short drive from the Philadelphia area to DC, and looking for something to do before the ballgames, well, you don’t need me to tell you about the museums and the monuments.

But for those who like to get off the beaten path and stay away from the touristy-type places, it’s always fun to meander through Georgetown. Here’s what to do: go get breakfast/lunch at Billy Martin’s on Wisconsin and then weave in and out of the tree-lined neighborhood streets.

Do you want to know who lives in some of those houses? No. 3307 N St. was where JFK and Jackie lived until they moved to the White House in 1961. No. 3018 on Dumbarton Avenue is where a Supreme Court Justice (Felix Frankfurter) and two Secretaries of State (Henry Kissinger and Cy Vance) lived. Alger Hiss lived at 2905 P Street, which was a half block down from a house JFK rented at 2808 P Street. Cold warrior and former secretary of state Dean Acheson lived across the street at 2805 P.

For more notable G-town houses, check out this Flickr site. Sadly, I still can’t locate the M St. bar where Dikembe Mutombo asked his famous question when he was still a Georgetown undergrad. In the meantime, the location of Felix Frankfurter’s crib will have to do.

Like opening for Hendrix Typically when professional athletes wax on about serious issues, I always end up hearing Chris Tucker recite his famous line from those movies he does with Jackie Chan.

Nope, I didn’t see it either.

Anyway, I rarely have had those Chris Tucker moments during Donovan McNabb’s many chats with the local press over the years, but the recent bit over his comments on HBO and the aftermath got it going.

But I’m hardly an expert on Donovan McNabb or the Eagles, so I’ll leave the analysis over his on-the-field and off-the-field issues to smarter people. However, it was quite poignant to note that the McNabb piece on HBO’s “Real Sports” was followed by a segment about an up-and-coming runner who was one of the Sudanese Lost Boys.

I can just imagine that production meeting:

“Hey, what do we follow the whiny, overpaid jock story with?”

“How about the story about the runner from Sudan who was orphaned when government troops attacked his village and killed his family? That should be an interesting contrast.”

I suppose the parallel was lost on a few folks.

Floyd update Yes, the word on the Floyd Landis case is expected to come down by Friday (or Saturday… maybe Sunday). To help lighten the work load (we have an extremely small staff here at CSN.com) I’ve been writing ahead, which could be a bad idea if the result is the opposite from the way I have been shaping the story.

There’s no point here. I'm just sayin'.

*** More coming from DC...

Keep my name out of your mouth...

Apparently, Donovan McNabb's press conference for Chunky Soup was a really big deal. Actually, it made all the papers – in Philadelphia. Nationally, it doesn't look as if the so-called "controversy" caused much of a ripple. In a quick search of Google News for stories written about the McNabb press conference, only one paper outside of the Philadelphia area had an original story written by a staff writer. And that writer was from Newark, N.J., which really isn't that far from Philly. Additionally, there was one original story on a national web site, but aside from that, the latest McNabb controversy du jour is strictly local.

So where is the national presence in all of this? To find out I emailed a friend who just so happens to be an executive with an NFL team. Here's his take on the discussion about McNabb in Philadelphia:

∙ Just the idea that Jeff Garcia should be the Eagles' starting quarterback in 2007 instead of Donovan McNabb should disqualify people from watching any NFL games, ever.

In other words, people think the whole thing is just silly.

What the... ?!?!

So a guy leaves town for a few days and all hell breaks loose in the Philly sports’ scene? Unfathomable craziness is unleashed like a plague of locusts ready to keep the citizens up all night with their constant chirping and desecration to the foliage.

Actually, TV types described it as a “black cloud” hanging over the city. I wouldn’t go that far, but what can you do with a group of people so weighed down in cliché? After all, these people believe the world revolves around sports. Actually, in a lot of cities – including most portions of Philadelphia – it does not. Intellectual discourse occurs, deals are brokered, people live lives, sing songs, raise children and dance jigs.

Overpaid men running around in tight fitting clothing never enters the consciousness.

Oh, but boy oh boy does it ever in these parts. Frankly, as I spent a Sunday afternoon soaking in a jacquzzi in attempt to loosen a balky hip flexor spent as one of those men running around in tight clothes while watching the second half of the Eagles football game and reading Richard Ford’s latest page turner, I noticed a few things that made me smile. Oh no, it wasn’t a smile of joy or the proverbial bleep-eating grin, but an ironic smile of seeing. Seeing and believeing.

Here’s what I saw:

TV shots showing Jeff Fisher, the coach of the Tennessee Titans, calmly strolling the sidelines at Philadelphia’s corporately named football stadia with a breezy demeanor and a cup of coffee in his right hand. Frankly, with the coffee in hand, Fisher looked as if he had the happy distance of a suburban parent at a 5-year-old’s soccer game. In fact, I was waiting for another one of the parents to meander over to Fisher and ask him, “how ya hittin’ ‘em,” or how much he paid to fill up the Audi this week.

Watching Fisher made me realize a few things. Firstly, watching football in a Jacuzzi with a good book and the sound down is fun. Secondly, it’s just a matter of time until Fisher or any number of other professional sports coaches gets a sponsorship from Starbucks or Folgers or any of the other hot beverage companies. However, I doubt Jeff Fisher would need to use one of those cup sleeves around his coffee to keep him from burning his hands.

I need one, though, because I’ve spent the past 35 years avoiding all manual labor. Regardless, all that time spent in warm, bubbling water has dried out my unblemished digits.

Thirdly, that Jeff Fisher seems like a good coach. It’s hard to decipher that simply from watching a guy drink coffee on the sideline of a football game, but Fisher seemed much more involved and enthusiastic about the proceedings than Philadelphia’s coach. With his tempered and unobnoxious fist pumps and slaps on the back for his players, Fisher looked as if he was genuinely enjoying his job.

Across the way, the Philadelphia guys were shown shuffling nervously from foot to foot and speaking with laminated charts and folders covering their mouths as if under surveillance. Why bother with all of that? Based on how the game went it was clear that the Philadelphia coaches’ headsets were tapped.

Fourthly, I thought that the Fisher dude would look pretty good on the home team sidelines. Then I remembered that he was here and gone over a decade ago. Perhaps they can get him back because it seems as if he figured out how to mix in those tricky hand-off plays into the offensive arsenal. Then again I can’t be so sure about his prowess since I had the sound down.

Anyone who didn’t think Donovan McNabb was finished for the season the second he went down on that fateful second-quarter play should have their sports-watching rights revoked. Those people are just far too optimistic for the bloody, treacherous and objectionable world of sports viewership. In sports, bad things happen all the time… it’s like a sport within a sport. If a big, seemingly invincible football player like Donovan McNabb falls down and does not get up after a rather innocuous play, count on him rolling off the field in an electric-powered cart and then heading uptown for an MRI before boarding a plane for Alabama to have his torn anterior cruciate ligament and damaged meniscus repaired.

Meanwhile, in light of McNabb’s situation in which he faces nearly a full calendar year before he can take a live snap in a regular-season NFL game, I haven’t heard anyone talk about the real realities of the situation.

Perhaps the very idea of those realities hurts more than a torn cruciate ligament?

What are those notions? Well, how do we phrase this… I suppose there is no delicate way to do it, so let’s come out with it… is it over for the Eagles? By over, I mean is it time to give up the idea in which the football masterminds forget adding a piece here or there to patchwork the roster and get the team a playoff berth?

Is it time (Gasp!) to rebuild?

If it is time to (Gasp!) rebuild, does that mean A.J. Feeley is the quarterback for the rest of the way?

We all know that the window of opportunity for championships, glory and Chunky Soup commercials opens ever so slightly for a very fleeting moment in time. When that window closes, it’s better and cleaner to simply get back to work in order to make it open up again rather than attempting to break through when everyone knows it’s been bolted.

Again, I had the sound down, but it seems as if the Eagles really like to utilize the forward pass play a lot. And by a lot I mean more than 50 times a game from time to time. Since that’s appears to be the case, shouldn’t they get some wide receivers that can catch the ball?

Speaking of catching the ball, whatever happened to that Greg Lewis fellow? Or that first-round draft pick dude who liked to talk too much? Are they still around? You know the Eagles picked that loquacious fellow before Chad Johnson, Reggie Wayne, Steve Smith and T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Man, would a first-round draftee look good catching passes right about now…

According to an acquaintance who is a scout for an NFL team and could be an assistant GM before the decade is out, Andy Reid has a reputation for being very organized and on top of things.

I have nothing else to add there… just tossing it out there for everyone.