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.

Ted Dean: The Eagles' forgotten hero

Considering that the Eagles and Green Bay Packers are two of the oldest continuous franchises in NFL history, it would seem that the teams would have a long and intense playoff history against each other. Yet despite a combined 168 seasons in the NFL, the Packers and Eagles have squared off in the postseason just twice.

Of course both of those games rate amongst the greatest games in Eagles’ history and were the site of some of the most iconic plays.

No one will ever forget the 4^th-and-26 pass from Donovan McNabb to wide receiver Freddie Mitchell with 72 seconds remaining in regulation to set up the game-tying field goal from David Akers and the eventual game-winner in overtime. Ask anyone who was around for the 1960 championship game, played on a Boxing Day, Monday afternoon and they will tell you that the most memorable play was the very last one of the game. That’s where the legendary two-way player, Chuck Bednarik, sat on fullback Jim Taylor until the clock expired at the Eagles’ 8-yard line.

As we’re often reminded, the 17-13 victory was the last time the Eagles were champions of the NFL. Only two other NFL teams (Lions, Cardinals) have suffered through a longer championship drought.

So if 50 years of history coupled with just a pair of playoff games is any indication, Sunday’s NFC Wild-Card showdown at The Linc could be another classic. Of course none of that matters now, but it sure is fun to measure how the past links with the present. There’s a line between Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. There also is one with Norm Van Brocklin, McNabb and Michael Vick and the two-game winning streak on the line.

Still, the thing about classic games like the 1960 NFL Championship and the 2003 NFC Division playoff is that people rarely remember the details of the game leading up to the final plays. They remember the broad strokes, like the ’60 title game was Vince Lombardi’s only loss in the playoffs or that the Packers have gone 1-5 in the playoffs since the ’03 loss.

But often the game’s most notable hero is the one least expected. Did anyone think McNabb would look for Mitchell on 4^th-and-26 on the do-or-die play? Sure, the immodest Mitchell, in his bizarro reality, probably talked himself into thinking that only he could have delivered on that game-turning play. The reality is Mitchell will go down as one of the biggest first-round busts ever.

But Ted Dean was a victim of bad luck and was the proverbial meteor shooting through the sky.

Certainly every Eagles fan knows all about Ted Dean, right? Just a 22-year-old rookie out of Radnor High and Wichita State during the 1960 title game, Dean scored the championship-winning touchdown on a 5-yeard run with 5:21 remaining in the game. Dean’s TD run was a run set up by his own 58-yard kickoff return to the Packers’ 40-yard line at snowy Franklin Field.

So, obviously those two plays turned Dean into an instant legend in Philadelphia… right?

Guess again.

Though he led the NFL in kickoff return yardage during his rookie year, injuries and a motorcycle accident limited Dean’s career to just 44 games over parts of four seasons. Interestingly, Dean’s TD run in the championship game was one of three he had in his career, while the 13 carries and 54 yards on the ground were the third-best outputs in the NFL.

Even more interestingly, the winning touchdown play wasn't called for Dean by Van Brocklin in the huddle, but for running back Billy Barnes instead. However, according to Reuben Frank in, Game Changers: The Greatest Plays in Philadelphia Eagles Football History, Van Brocklin changed the play while walking to the line, choosing to give the ball to the rookie.

Here's how Dean described the play to Frank in 2008:

“We were walking up to the line and he yelled out, ‘Switch,’ and changed the play,’” Dean said. “I can’t speculate why he did it, and I never had the opportunity to ask him. He had faith in me. He knew my potential and put his trust in me. I was elated, of course. I wanted to be the one running over the goal line.

“I had fumbled earlier in the game, and I rarely ever fumbled. Van Brocklin knew I was still hot from fumbling, so maybe that’s why he gave me the ball.”

By the age of 26, Dean was out of football and teaching at Gladwyne Elementary School. That wasn't uncommon, though, noting that the NFL (or even Major League Baseball) hardly paid enough in those days to be a full-time job. Interviews of Dean are tough to find and he chose not to attend the 50-year reunion of the 1960 team last September before the season opener between the Eagles and Packers. Instead, the hero of the Eagles’ last championship chose to stay at his home in Arizona, far from the limelight.

Nevertheless, Frank says he had a nice chat with Dean while working on his book and he remembered the winning play well:

“I put my head down like a battering ram, ran behind a block behind Gerry Huth, and I was in,” Dean said. “I wasn’t touched until just before I got into the end zone.”

It might have been the motorcycle accident and the resulting hip injury in 1965 that soured Dean’s interest for football. Though he attempted to make a comeback as a kicker in 1967 with the Steelers, Dean put the game behind him and never looked back.

Dean preferred to talk about piano playing, not football as he told writer J.F. Pirro.

“I got anxious with football,” he said in that old interview. “I don’t want to get serious with any other sports—but maybe some hobbies.”

No, Dean would not become a folk hero in Philadelphia like so many under-the-radar ballplayers dream about. He was the shooting star, here for a glorious moment and then choosing to make his mark in another walk of life.

Regardless, Dean’s touchdown run was not only one of the most significant plays in franchise history, but also one of the rarest. Take away Dean’s run and the Eagles have had just six, fourth-quarter rushing touchdowns to win or tie a game in the 28 years that followed.

Coincidentally, Dean and Mitchell were both out of the NFL by age 26. Counting the playoffs, Dean and Mitchell also scored six touchdowns in their career.

Makes one wonder what will happen to this Sunday’s hero.

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.

Big, stupid numbers

Whether they tried or not, the Eagles just couldn’t make the numbers add up even though they don’t look so complicated from a first glance.
 
The numbers, 30, 8, 7.5 million and, most importantly, 2 were trickier to solve than a Rubik’s Cube or even the daily online Sudoku puzzle. Sure, the first three are easy to make fit but when one mixes in that 2 the entire puzzle just fell apart.
 
At age 30 with eight hard years already under his belt with a $7.5 million on paper owed to him next season, Brian Westbrook became just another number to the brass behind the Eagles. Oh, there’s nothing complicated about an All-Pro running back at Westbrook’s age and experience that should scare off anyone. However, those two concussions he had in less than a month last season ruined the math.
 
Frankly, that sucks.

No, that’s not because Westbrook was cut by the Eagles (largely because of those concussions), though that is part of it. The disappointing part is that the Eagles’ move exemplifies the ugly reality that we must bear…

We’re all just numbers. That’s it. Somewhere some guy is looking at an Excel spreadsheet without an inch of an emotion or an inkling of knowledge of any of our traits, and that guy is making decisions on all of our futures. Is that the way it should be? And if so, why not train a chimp or build a robot to do that guy’s job.

We like sports because they are an escape. When it comes down to it, it’s entertainment or just one big soap opera that lasts for a long season, but never really rests during the hiatus. So when real life issues like downsizing slides into it from the cold-hearted and emotionless corporate types that run the Eagles, it kind of ruins the whole enjoyment of it. Who wants the local football team to be just like every other business in the country? Not me.

One of the reasons why I dislike fantasy football isn’t the nerdery of the enterprise, though that doesn’t help. Instead, who wants to pretend to be an owner of a team and have to make decisions without emotion? It’s not real, but it kind of is at the same time. You root for numbers, not people.

Numbers lie more than people. They are much more easily manipulated, too. Crunch them and push them they way you wish and numbers will say anything you want them to. They’re cheap, precise and stupid and who can respect that?

So the reason why Brian Westbrook was unceremoniously waived by the Eagles all comes down to the numbers. In fact, Westbrook said he was expecting a call from the team to ask him to take a pay cut or restructure his contract. Well, they restructured it all right—restructured it by dropping it into the office shredder.

“It’s just the fact that you don’t wanna be released,” Westbrook told CSN’s Derrick Gunn. “I have spent a long time in Philadelphia, since ’97—I started in college and had eight years with the Eagles. So you have some type of uncertainty going into the future. I was surprised by the news but at the same time it is part of the business.”

Yep, part of the business. It doesn’t matter that Westbrook was a model employee and the epitome of professionalism. It also doesn’t matter that he pretty much spent the entire 2009 season resting from a knee and ankle injury plus those two concussions, which means he doesn’t have the mileage on his body like your typical 30-year-old running back.

Westbrook says he wants to play in 2010 and he likely will have plenty of job prospects, so no one should feel sorry for the new ex-Eagle. Sure, the Eagles run a money-making machine, but the NFL is an industry unlike the others that are routinely casting off hard-working and professional people. Westbrook very well could end up in a better situation than he was in with the Eagles. That hardly seems farfetched when one looks at Westbrook’s digits.

“A lot of things you lack physically, you make up in the mental aspect. That doesn't mean you can't compete at a very high level,” Westbrook told Gunn. “You see Brian Dawkins, he played here until he was 34 or 35-years old, then went out to Denver and played at a very high level. It can be done. It takes a special player to be able to do that. I have that will to do it, that desire to do it. I am going to train as hard as I can this offseason to come back and show people that I can still play.”

At least there is one aspect of the business we can all respect—if a guy can do the job, there will be a place for him in the NFL. They got that part right.

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.

Herschel is ready to rumble

Surely most people have heard the stories by now. You know, like the one where he never worked out with weights because he sculpted his physique by doing thousands and thousands of sit-ups and pushups daily, usually during the commercials of TV shows.

He also only eats one meal a day and has no dietary restrictions aside from basic vegetarianism (no fish, no meat, etc.), which usually comes after a day of workouts.

He owns the record for most yards rushing in a season by a professional football player (2,411 in 1985 for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL). In the NFL, he is the only player with a 90-plus yard reception, 90-plus yard run, and a 90-plus yard kickoff return all in the same season (with the Eagles in 1994), and he is also the only player to record an 84-plus yard touchdown run and an 84-plus yard touchdown reception, in the same game.

He’s also the only football player to pull off those feats and dance with the Forth Worth Ballet.

He is a sixth-degree black belt in tae kwan do, made the 1992 U.S. Olympic team in the bobsled, and next Saturday night in Miami, he will make his professional debut in the MMA against a fighter that wasn’t even born when he won the Heisman Trophy in 1982.

In other words, Herschel Walker is still quite active.

To call Herschel Walker a freak of nature is unfair to both freaks and nature. After all, we make a big deal about Jamie Moyer pitching successfully for the Phillies into his late 40s, but no is expecting the lefty to leave the Phillies in order to take up mixed-martial arts. However, when the news came out that Walker, born in the same year as Moyer, was taking up a new sport no one batted an eye.

There is no way to classify Walker as an athlete. Personally, he’s accessible like Charles Barkley only without the bravado, vices or rap sheet. Where football players Bo Jackson, Brian Jordan and Deion Sanders dabbled with careers in Major League Baseball, Walker says he used to go from college football games with Georgia to martial arts competitions. That was when he didn’t have a track meet, of course.

“He’s a freak, but this is not a freak show,” Luke Rockhold, one of Walker’s main training partners, told The Associated Press. “He put in three months of training at one of the best gyms in the world. He’s legitimate.”

Still, amongst his competitors in the MMA there aren’t many who remember Walker as a star football player. Though he was a veteran player by the time he got to the Eagles in 1992, Walker was always the fastest runner on the team. Actually, he made those 90-yard runs look effortless where he rarely changed direction or broke his stride. Even though it looked like Walker was out on a Sunday morning job, defenders seemed to disappear off the screen while trying to run him down in the open field.

Who didn’t love the guy? Sure, he played for the Cowboys and the Giants during his NFL career, and always seemed to kill the Eagles when he played for the Vikings (remember that 93-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in ’89?). Still, those 3,732 yards-from scrimmage for the Eagles in three seasons helped alleviate some of the dread in watching the team get out to a 7-2 start in ’94 only to drop the final seven games of the season. Three years later Walker gave up football.

So yeah, Walker is excited to get back into mixing it up—he’s definitely taking next Saturday’s fight seriously.

“There have been some athletes that have been totally an embarrassment," Walker said during a press conference last week in New York City to promote the fight. “Jose Canseco, it's insulting, the guy never trained. I’m a guy that's serious about this. This is fighting, you get hurt. People that talk about (a publicity stunt) don't even know me. That's why I always tell people to come and join me or come and work out with me. Then you'll see who I really am.”

Walker says if there had been the MMA 20 years ago, he might have cut his football career short. He’s definitely into it.

“This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,” Walker said, who will fight as a heavyweight in his debut and says his body fat index is up to 4 percent these days. “When a guy gets me in an arm bar within two minutes (during training), I'd better be learning something if I'm going to get in the cage.”

Yes, because all 47-year olds need to know how to get the hell out of an arm bar. And because of the demand of the new sport and his age, Walker has added a new wrinkle into his workouts he never considered before…

Naps.

“I never took a nap after football practice," he said at the press conference. “When I come home after MMA practice, I'm taking a nap.”

Even though it sounds kind of funny to hear a middle-aged man talking about fighting a 26-year old in a MMA cage, Walker has it all figured out. When asked why he’s doing it, the answer was perfectly succinct.

“Why not?” he said.

Chewing up the cupcakes

We were sitting in a restaurant on the 16th Street Mall in Denver watching the early football games and just wiling away the time before Game 3 of the NLDS when the text messages started rolling in.

“What is with those brown uniforms the Broncos are wearing?”

It was true. In some sort of tribute to earth tones, the AFL, or Al Davis, the NFL thought it would be a neat idea for the Broncos to where brown, yellow and white. It was similar to the San Diego Padres color scheme from the 1970s, only uglier and with a picture of a horse. The throwback uniforms the Broncos wore on Oct. 11 defied the notion that NFL stands for “No Fun League,” because whoever came up with the idea to wear those duds clearly had an excellent sense of humor.

But that part doesn’t matter now.

“Are you watching the Cowboys get beat by the Chiefs? Wade Phillips will get fired after this one.”

That was the jest of the majority of the text that floated in. Indeed the Cowboys-Chiefs game was showing on one of the screens, and sure enough Phillips’ 2-2 club had their hands full with a 0-4 team. The Cowboys and Phillips definitely looked like they were in trouble when the Chiefs scored a touchdown with 24 seconds left in the game to force overtime.

Miles Austin might have saved the season that day for the Cowboys based on the messages I was getting. The receivers 60-yard TD catch won it in OT and capped off a 10-catch, 250-yard effort. More notable, after the game Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones said Philips wasn’t going anywhere…

Yet.

Perhaps that scare from the Chiefs was the kick in the rear the Cowboys needed? Including that game, the Cowboys won six of their next seven before going on a three-game winning streak to end that season in which they notched two straight shutouts for the first time in team history and knocked off the 13-0 New Orleans Saints.

Of course none of that will matter if the Cowboys lose to the Eagles in the first-round playoff game on Saturday night, but think about it for a sec—Philips and the Cowboys were on the precipice and responded. Additionally, they very well could have the hottest defense in the league headed into the playoffs.

Getting two shutouts in a row is not as easy as the Cowboys made it look.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia the Eagles were busy patting themselves on the back during the six-game winning streak that carried them into last week’s debacle. So pleased with the way things were going the team’s brass gave coach Andy Reid a contract extension.

“This is just another statement by Jeffrey (Lurie) and Joe (Banner) to say we have the top organization in the National Football League,” Reid said.

Indeed it was something like that. After all, you can’t argue with the bottom line—Reid and the Eagles went 11-5 this year and set the franchise record for points in a season. He also has the most wins in franchise history and been to the playoffs eight times in 11 years.

That’s not too bad.

But there’s something about all those points and the 11 wins that feels a bit hollow this season. Maybe it’s because the Eagles were 0-4 against teams in the playoffs and they won just one game against a team with a winning record.

That’s not too good considering Banner has claimed his team has the best roster in all of football. Oh yes, they’re very fond of themselves with all that “Gold Standard” talk. But it makes one scratch their head and wonder why the Eagles can’t beat any good teams.

Like maybe more than once.

Good teams beat good teams. So if we’re going to define Reid’s legacy as anything it’s that he certainly knows how to plow through a schedule full of cupcakes. True, Reid has a 10-7 record in the playoffs, but seven of those wins are in the first round, while five of the losses have come in a championship game where the opponent has been legit.

Want to talk about the bottom line? OK, if the Eagles don’t win it this season, it will be a half a century—50 years—since a team from Philadelphia was the champion of the NFL.

"Maybe just too much effort," Reid said when asked about his teams' failure in the biggest games of the year.

Oh yes, the trying-too-hard argument.

Gold standard? How about the Chicago Cubs of football?

Nevertheless, the sentiment out of Dallas is that despite an 11-win season and an NFC East title, Phillips is gone of the Cowboys lose.

Reid? Yeah, he’ll be back—win or lose.

Spitting mad

There’s an old-timey saying that I’m sure you heard your grandmother or great grandmother say in a fit of frustration.

“I’m so angry I could spit!”

When you give it some thought it makes a lot of sense. Most of the time anger provokes violence, but some believe violence is the last refuge of a weak mind. So if a person cannot control themselves, yet don’t want to resort to violence, the only recourse is the most disgusting thing a person can think of.

Here comes the loogie!

I’ve been in this position before. The setting was a fifth-grade kickball game in the schoolyard at James Buchanan Elementary, where our class was in a tight game against the other fifth-grade class. But as the action got heated and recess began to wind down, the sixth graders poured out of a side door and onto the macadam. Inevitably, since they were the oldest and therefore “kings” of Buchanan Elementary, they really didn’t care that we had an intense kickball game going and strutted right through the infield en masse.

“Get off the field!”

That’s where it started and it went quickly downhill from there. One thing led to another and I was shouting down the third base line at Megan O’Brien, who was wearing a lovely cable-knit sweater (at least that’s the way I put it out there for the sake of the story). So with the intensity of the game superseded by the intensity and frustration of the argument with the sixth graders, cooler heads did not prevail.

Having grown up with a sister not too much younger than me, I learned very early on that a man never, ever hits a girl. Ever. We learn hard lessons when we’re 4-years-old and hitting girls is the one that lasts the longest…

That and lifting the seat.

Remembering an incident when I was 4 where an argument over the crayons led to a punch in the nose for my sister, I knew better. However, I wanted to get Megan and her sixth-grade classmates off the diamond so we could finish the game before the recess bell rang and we had to go inside. Instead of taking a poke at her, I gathered up the saliva in my mouth and let it fly.

Not smart.

The intention, believe it or not, was to fire off a warning shot—you know, brush ‘em back a bit so we could finish the game. The problem was my aim was a little too true and the next thing I knew Megan was running and screaming toward the recess monitor with the evidence on the forearm of her nice, cable-knit sweater.

That was the end of the school day for me.

It’s interesting how people react to spitting and specifically, spitting on people, places or things. In fact, I’ll wager that spitting on a person is worse than a punch in the nose based on reactions. Truth is, it’s a valid argument that because Roberto Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument in the 1997 baseball season, he was not elected to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

It doesn’t matter that Alomar and Hirschbeck have buried the hatchet, but it does matter that two legacies are somewhat defined by a single incident. Alomar very well may have been the best second baseman of his generation, but he spit on an umpire during an argument and that swayed a handful of voters from validating his career.

Oh yes, it was the loogie heard ‘round the world.

Remember when Charles Barkley spit at a heckler in New Jersey, but hit a little girl instead? Of course you do. Every time Sir Chuck gets arrested or does anything controversial and they recount past slip-ups, the spitting incident always gets mentioned and is usually placed high on the list of the worst things he ever did.

Charles Barkley has been arrested for throwing a man through a plate-glass window in Florida, punching a man in Milwaukee, and for a DUI charge in Arizona. HE ALSO SPIT ON A LITTLE GIRL!

For that incident in New Jersey during the 1991 season, Barkley was suspended and fined $10,000. He also bought season tickets for the girl and her family and went on to forge a friendship with them. However, when his career was over it was that one little gob of saliva that was the blemish on his record he most regretted.

“I was fairly controversial, I guess, but I regret only one thing—the spitting incident,” Barkley said. “But you know what? It taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that I was getting way too intense during the game. It let me know I wanted to win way too bad. I had to calm down. I wanted to win at all costs. Instead of playing the game the right way and respecting the game, I only thought about winning.”

Oh yes, the loogie can force one to look inward.

Apparently that’s what happened when Dave Spadaro, the editor of the Eagles’ web site, decided it would be a neat and compelling bit of commentary to walk onto the middle of Cowboys Stadium and drop not one, but two wet ones on the iconic logo star. Based on the video it seemed to a moment where the spitter was striking some sort of defiant stand…

You know, like that guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Maybe if Spadaro had stood in front of a star-logoed tank or handcuffed himself to the goal posts while being beaten by men dressed in Cowboys’ garb, perhaps there would be more sympathy toward his allegiances. Instead, he issued a press release/apology on the team’s official site.

Obviously he misread the way people feel about the act of spitting and what it represents. Sure, a lot of people understood the sentiment of spitting on that blue star—especially after the Eagles were dominated by the Cowboys and had to return for a rematch in the playoffs this Saturday. But spitting? Really? Is he in the fifth grade?

Take a look:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDUYDfFGMI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Clearly Spadaro was attempting to rally the home team against the hated Cowboys. Why else would a person drop gooey spit on an inanimate symbol of… well, the 50-yard line? But even in this case the clownish act was greeted with head-scratching from the Eagles.

“Who spit on what?” running back Leonard Weaver said with a shrug following Thursday afternoon’s practice. “

So now, the dude representing a certain segment of the fans by standing on the star and coughing one up with a video cam in hand, did not exactly sound the bugle to charge for the ballplayers.

“I didn't even know he did it,” Weaver said. “That has nothing to do with us as a team.”

Let’s just hope he didn’t spit onto the field with a head cold.

What did Orwell write about Facebook?

OK, where do we start on this fortnight of bad karma for the local football club? First the Eagles allowed Brian Dawkins - one of the top three most popular players in franchise history - to sign with Denver without so much as a token PR countermove to quell the overwhelming fan dischord.

Then Lito Sheppard was dealt for a fifth-round pick. Wide receiver Greg Lewis was dealt, too, though that one isn't much to get all worked up over. Still, in 43 Super Bowls, there is only one Eagle wide receiver to catch a touchdown pass and that receiver is Greg Lewis.

Meanwhile, cornerback Shawn Springs was brought in for a visit and trotted out before the local media only to sign with the Patriots. No worries there, either. The Eagles signed safety Sean Jones a couple of days later.

The biggest one might have come on Monday when Tra Thomas signed with Jacksonville. If Thomas didn't make it back to the fold, perhaps Jon Runyan will find work elsewhere next year, too.

But then things really started to get weird... like weirder than allowing Dawkins to split town without so much as lift to the airport or a hearty handshake to say, "Thanks for making us look good for 13 years."

Late last week the social advocacy group ACORN protested in front of owner Jeffrey Lurie's Main Line home. The telling part about that was not that the group claimed the team owed the city of Philadelphia $8 million in shared revenues from luxury boxes in a stadium that was blown to bits five years ago. Instead, it was odd that a group with ties to progressive politicians and social advocacy would target Lurie, who seems to have carved out a place for himself in the Democratic party and folks with ties to the group.

It sounded as if the groups Lurie wants to bind himself to are protesting. But maybe that's oversimplifying it a bit.

However, today, our friend John Gonzalez wrote a story for the Inquirer in which he tells the tale of Dan Leone, a game-day employee for the Eagles who was fired from his job for lamenting the departure of Dawkins on his Facebook page.

Seriously, Facebook. A social-media web site filled with jokes, silly pictures and friends having some not-so private private conversations.

Holy Big Brother!

Besides, the Eagles definitely have had worse seeds drawing a paycheck. Look at T.O. I never met either man, but I'll go out on a limb and say Leone is no Terrell Owens.

Anyway, Gonz's was picked up on some well-known web sites and blogs and the consensus seems to be that the Eagles can do whatever they want. Leone is a seasonal, at-will employee without much recourse if the team wants to tell him to go away.

It stinks and it's cold-hearted, but that's the way it is sometimes. It's especially head-shaking when the fact that Leone is handicapped with a neurological disorder called transverse myelitis and works with the aid of a wheelchair.

Not that his condition had anything to do with Leone's job performance or activities away from work.

Kulp over at The 700 Level sums it up nicely:

On one hand, you have a lifelong Eagles fan who not unlike so many others was crushed by the departure and simply made an emotional comment. Unfortunately, he fell into the technology's trap, utilizing politically incorrect terms in a public forum and associating it with his employer.

Still, firing the man? The reaction seems harsh, especially in light of everything that's been said about this organization over how it's treated its high profile employees, like Dawkins for instance. For a club that could sure use the good will right about now, it doesn't feel like the appropriate action. (Just to clarify, I'm not saying it isn't appropriate either, only that it doesn't feel right.)

Still... Facebook? Seriously? Wow. If people get fired from jobs because of what they put on their social-media pages, the unemployment rate in the country would be 95 percent.

C'mon... it's not like he tried to sneak a hoagie into the stadium -- oh yeah, people can do that now. Never mind.

The odd part, of course, is in an age where anyone with an opinion can create a blog, post on a message board, call in to a radio station or protest in front of the owner's mansion, why is it that the guy in wheelchair with a knee-jerk status update on Facebook gets the axe.

Sensitive much?

* In the interest of full disclosure, I'm in the process of stripping any color, vim or verve from my Facebook page. Heck, if Leone isn't allowed to have a personality and a job at the same time, maybe a little sacrifice is OK. I'll still be your friend though.

Besides, Facebook is so 2007.

All bets are off on Twitter, though. Tune in later and I'll tell you about my lunch...

Vegan tofu steaks again?

Pay, Eagles, Pay?

Certainly Philadelphia sports fans have heard the song, "Fly, Eagles, Fly." It's a popular song in these parts on Sundays during football season. But this week protesters tailgated outside of team owner Jeffrey Lurie's Main Line mansion and sang, "Pay, Eagles, Pay." Only they weren't much in tune and gave the send-up of the team's fight song more of a chant vibe.

At least that's how the scene was described by the local press.

Apparently members of the social advocacy group ACORN had a few burgers and dogs outside of Lurie's manse in protest of what the claim is the team's refusal to pay approximately $8 million in fees to the City of Philadelphia from shared revenues in luxury boxes at Veterans Stadium.

In other words, ACORN wants the Eagles to pay the city the money it did not offer Brian Dawkins.

Bigger than that, ACORN is wants the football team, (recently valued at $1 billion by Forbes Magazine and currently $40 million under the salary cap according to team president Joe Banner) to pay up because Mayor Michael Nutter has promised budget cuts for some social services provided by the city.

So that $8 million the Eagles reportedly owe will go a long way, says ACORN.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Ian Phillips, the group's legislative director, said businesses and other entities owe the city millions.

"We could use that money to cut the budget shortfall," Phillips said. "We're going to be calling out other people who owe the city money. We're moving down the list."

Certainly it's more fodder for Lurie's critics during a week filled with some PR hits related to the team's personnel moves. Still, a team spokesperson told KYW radio that the amount the team owes is in dispute and the Eagles are awaiting a decision by an arbitrator to determine who much money the club owes.

Now here's the interesting thing about Lurie and ACORN. During the 2008 Presidential campaign Lurie reportedly donated $4,600 to then candidate Barack Obama. The interesting part about that is President Obama had an association with ACORN from his days as a community organizer in Chicago.

Lurie also has made $67,500 in federal campaign contributions dating back to 1984. Going back to late 2006, Lurie has made four donations of over $2,000 to Hillary Clinton and was a supporter of the current Secretary of State's presidential campaign.

So it sounds as if Lurie and the Eagles will pay the city its share of the luxury box revenues... the team just wants a judge to tell it how much.

Source: News Meat

Thinking up a master plan

Typically, the Eagles don’t bring in free agent players for a visit unless there is serious intent. Make that very serious. After all, when Joe Banner and the boys go fishing, they like ‘em in a barrel belly up.

Just aim and fire.

But it seems as if there is a new type of movement happening over there at One NovaCare Way. A sea change of sorts, if you will, though (to be fair) this is totally based on the events over the past few days.

First, Banner and the Eagles allowed seven-time Pro-Bowl safety Brian Dawkins to walk away after offering the 13-year veteran something that didn’t quite measure up to a two-year deal.

Then, cornerback Shawn Springs showed up in town, did a little chit-chat with the team’s brass and the local sporting press where it was revealed that the soon-to-be 34-year old corner might end up as a safety if he joined the Eagles.

Really?

Continue ready this story...

I've got nothing...

Happy belated Super Fat Tuesday, folks! Here's hoping everything turned out just the way you wanted ... The Super Bowl is over, the start of spring training is just one week away and there really isn't much else to talk about. Well, there's the weather... it's early February and it's 60 degrees, but the word on the street is that it will be just 10 degrees come Sunday night.

That Mother Nature... she's just so fickle.

Capriciousness aside, there really isn't much to say. The Flyers are in first place, which is cool. However, it seems a little too early in the season for the Stanley Cup chatter to heat up. The Sixers are... well, let's just hope they get the right portion of ping-pong balls.

Since I don't have anything new to write about (pertaining to Philadelphia and its sports teams), I'll just do a little hit-and-run on a few items.

• So trainer Brian McNamee reportedly has physical evidence that Roger Clemens used performance enhancing drugs. What, is this the blue dress of the sporting scene? Did McNamee really save the residue from giving the Rocket a shot in the derriere? Wow.
• Though I'm no football expert, I suspect the Giants' victory in the Super Bowl indicts the Eagles' inability to win the big game in some way. I just don't know what that is.
• How come the Giants can win the Super Bowl and the Eagles can't?
• After Bill Belichick abandoned his team and left his defense on the field so he could go into the locker room and sulk after the loss in the Super Bowl, it's fair to say, "Thank God Bill Belichick is a football coach." After all, the delicate genius that is Bill Belichick could be using all his wisdom and grace to be doing unimportant things like solving poverty, designing programs for world peace or delve into cancer research. But instead - and lucky for us - he's a football coach. We should all knee down and soak in the aura that such men emit.

As Tom Cruise said to Craig T. Nelson in the epic Western Pennsylvania football film, All the Right Moves, "You are just a football coach!" Then he ran away. Fast.

• Aside from not having updated spy films, perhaps the Patriots lost to the Giants because it was the first time they played a good team twice. All of the other teams the Pats played twice were in the AFC East, who combined for a 12-36 record.
• Is Kris Benson a low-risk, high-reward possibility or is he simply a potential annoyance for the Phillies? Oh, it's not Benson who is annoying. By all accounts he's nothing more than a typical baseball player, which means he's just like everyone else only more entitled. The "problem" with Benson is the baggage he brings - that stuff is all fine and dandy when it happens somewhere else like Pittsburgh, New York or Baltimore. We have enough to deal with as it is already.
• I really enjoy eating with chop sticks.
• Now that Sen. Arlen Specter has decided to take on the Patriots' alleged spying in his role as de facto commissioner of the NFL, it's quite interesting how there is quite a bit of bad press. Suddenly, sports media types are indignant and calling upon Congressional leaders to "focus on more important issues." Well, yeah, Congressional involvement is sports seems more than a bit silly. It's silly that leagues have antitrust exemption just as it's ridiculous that government funded agencies can suspend athletes without proper due process.
  But perhaps the biggest reason why sports media/fans don't want Congress involved in the Patriots' alleged spying or steroid use in baseball is because they don't want to know the truth. No, Congress is hardly the beacon of trust or the arbiter of truth and justice, but the fact is they are smart enough to take on cases and issues they know they can't lose. Congress likes sure things and because it looks like they have one with baseball and maybe even the Patriots, maybe some folks are worried that the curtain will be pulled back for everyone to take a good look.