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Trials & Tribulations of a Thirtysomething Philadelphia Sports Fan

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The Sixers Wasted Embiid. Join the Club.

Philly has a Way of Doing These Things

Published April 23, 2024

I don’t write about/watch/think about the 76ers very often, but I have to shake my head at recent developments, as they find themselves in a 2-0 hole to the Knicks (The Knicks are good? Is Patrick Ewing still on the team?) in their first-round series. They probably deserve a better fate, a series split at least, but in typical fashion they came away from MSG empty-handed as they play out the string on what is shaping up to be yet another playoff disappointment.

Which brings me to Joel Embiid. He’s going to the Hall of Fame. He’s one of the best players in franchise history. The Sixers have had a good deal of success and a revitalization with him as their centerpiece, transforming the franchise from a flaming pile of garbage to one of the better teams in the league over the course of Embiid’s career. But that light (or darkness) at the end of the tunnel is coming into sharp focus.

I feel like I’ve been saying for two or three years now, “They have about two more years of peak Embiid, then they have to figure out how to reconfigure this team.” Well, they’re clearly on borrowed time now. There are elements of hope, of course, like Tyrese Maxey. But so many misses along the way, like Ben Simmons and James Harden and Tobias Harris, have just doomed this team to second round cannon fodder for years. And now they’re likely to not even get that far. They’ve really tried to put enough help around Embiid to will this team to a title, or at least the Finals, but it hasn’t worked. It really makes you appreciate Allen Iverson, who literally never had anything around him except for one season, which just so happens to have been the Sixers’ only NBA Finals appearance in the last 40 years.

And that’s where I’m going with this. Philadelphia, by and large, gets its fair share of great players. Yes, we bemoan things, but in the last 35 years, we’ve seen the aforementioned Sixers, plus Charles Barkley, Reggie White, Brian Dawkins, Donovan McNabb, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay, Bryce Harper, Eric Lindros, and Claude Giroux, just to name a few. That’s kind of the law of averages at play, but you get the idea.

Other than Utley, none of those players won a championship in Philadelphia. Just like it’s abundantly clear that Joel Embiid won’t, either. We got greedy and came really close to a few all-time Eagles (Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, Lane Johnson, Rick Lovato) winning multiple titles, but they also had to just “settle” for a single championship.

While I realize that it’s very difficult to win it all once, let alone multiple times, is it too much to ask for a star player in this town, if they are truly elite, to put their mark on a couple of title squads? You have to go back to Bernie Parent and Bobby Clarke to meet this standard in Philly sports. Meanwhile, teams in different sports are winning multiple titles all over the place, with depth guys attaining some legend status thanks to earning a pair of rings. Where are our guys like this? We can’t even get Joel Embiid a measly Conference Finals appearance.

Anyway, I’ll just sit here being old, hoping that one of these decades, a local club gets it together and actually takes advantage when there is true greatness in its midst.

Embiid reacts to something going wrong, I'm sure. Shocking. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty)

(Mostly) Celebrating 20 Years at Citizens Bank Park

We’ve come a long way since that gloomy loss to the Reds 20 years ago today.

Published April 12, 2024

I’ve been pretty privileged as a Philadelphia sports fan to see some big events in person, and the date of April 12, 2004 definitely sticks out. It was the Phillies’ inaugural game at brand spanking new Citizens Bank Park (I’m not counting the “on deck series” exhibition games they had the week before) and it was the dawn of a new era.

My dad and I stood mere feet from Hall of Famer Robin Roberts and Phils’ broadcaster Scott Graham for the unveiling of Roberts’ statue before that game, figuring we could get way closer to see that one than the reveal of the other statues around the park. We were right. And then it was time for pomp and circumstance and an actual baseball game. The Phillies, in typical fashion, lost that game, but the park started to accumulate its “firsts” (first hit, first home run, etc.) and we were off and running.

CBP (props for keeping the same name for 20 years) was a destination in and of itself for a few years, as good-but-not-good-enough Phillies teams kept the park packed. And then, the breakthrough, with five straight playoff appearances and a World Series triumph and parade (WFC) in 2008.

There were some golden moments in there, and CBP has been made all the richer for it. Doc’s perfect game. Shane Victorino’s grand slam off CC Sabathia (I got to be there for that one). Jimmy Rollins’ walkoff gapper against the Dodgers. It almost seems like Citizens Bank Park created more memorable moments than the Vet did in less than half the time. Of course, the ready availability of everything being broadcast and immortalized on video may have just made it seem this way. In any case, these are the moments that have defined this generation of Phillies fans. And it’s not just limited to the playoffs, as we’ve seen plenty of standout moments, games, and performances during regular season play as well.

But as Philadelphia fans, we have to also incorporate the failures that have occurred. Chief among them is probably the 2011 playoff loss that culminated in Ryan Howard’s injury and the death knell for that era of Phillies baseball. Getting no-hit in the World Series in 2022 is right up there too. Hey, the team is going to lose games, and it’s certainly done its share of that at home over the last two decades.

Let’s return to positivity, however.

Before ultimately losing in that 2022 World Series, the fans re-established CBP as THE place for home field advantage, where the crowd’s love for the Phillies is only matched by their disdain for the visitors. And when Bryce Harper hit the NLCS-clinching home run against San Diego (got to be there that time, too), it felt like another milestone in the stadium’s history. We’re linking generations here, people.

The next era of CBP figures to pile on even more excitement, as we hopefully watch Harper cement his Hall of Fame legacy, young players develop into stars, and if we’re lucky we’ll get to hoist another flag or five. Not the dumb ‘wild card appearance’ one, though. And let’s not forget, Citizens Bank Park will finally host the MLB All-Star Game in 2026. You could be forgiven if you didn’t remember that, since they announced it five whole years ago. But pretty soon they’ll be pumping the tires on that. I’m frankly surprised I haven’t heard much yet. Season tickets will probably max out and you’ll be paying premiums to go to games, unfortunately. Good for the team, bad for some fans if they only have time to get to a random smattering of games. It’s all part of the deal, though.

Anyway, happy 20th birthday to Citizens Bank Park, and here’s to many more years of success for the Phillies within its friendly confines, even if they’re wearing those City Connect jerseys.

Bryce Harper and the Phillies celebrate their NLCS win in 2022.

More of this please, Phillies. (AP/Matt Slocum)

April Fools’ DECADE in Philadelphia Sports

It’s like someone has been playing a cruel joke on us all along.

Published April 1, 2024

Look, I know that the sports teams in a given city will take turns alternating between being good and bad. And it comes on various levels. Maybe they’re actually good but choke in the playoffs constantly, or maybe they’re just run-of-the-mill bad and fail to make the playoffs with any kind of regularity. Or perhaps they’re legitimately awful and don’t inspire any kind of hope.

In Philly, we get all of that, and it comes in waves. Just look at the pranks we’ve had pulled on us this decade alone (I was thinking of actually going back ten years, but I’ll just return to the start of this decade, 2020. What a time to be alive.)

Look at the Sixers. They’ve been “good” this whole decade, and they’ve only needed that one missing piece to go alongside Joel Embiid’s dominance. At the end of last decade, they made the wrong choice, letting Jimmy Butler go. And it’s been a comedy of errors and second round playoff exits since. Now, with Embiid out, they’ve been exposed as one of the worst teams in the league, just a shell around Tyrese Maxey. And don’t even bring up how James Harden’s tenure played out or how much of a bust Tobias Harris has been. Joke’s on us.

This decade started with a lot of promise for the Phillies, thanks to Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, and J.T. Realmuto having just come aboard. After fizzling for a few years, everything finally came into place during the 2022 playoffs, and the Phillies had the Astros on the ropes in the World Series. But, instead of just a garden variety playoff series loss, we were served up a no-hitter against the Phils in Game 4 and then a few games of popgun offense that doomed the team at the worst time. Whoever scripts these things doubled down in 2023, letting the Phillies choke away the NLCS to an inferior team, thanks to some of the worst crunch time performances you’ve ever seen on the diamond. It’s been a thrilling few years, but somewhere in the backs of all of our minds, we are fully expecting three or four more consecutive playoff exits just like this.

For the Flyers, they were red hot in early 2020…then the world shut down. They finally “won a round” during the fake bubble playoffs, but the four calendar years since have been an absolute slog to get back to respectability. They finally got things right this season, but they might be too “gassed” to reach the finish line. Missing the playoffs for the fourth straight season is on the table unless they can figure things out in a hurry. Throw in some of the oddest medical mysteries you’ve ever seen PLUS the fact that their supposed franchise goalie will probably never play in the NHL again, and this decade feels like more of a curse than a joke. Although, that’s basically every decade for this team.

And then there are the Eagles, Super Bowl champs last decade, who have had a productive few years in the 2020s but haven’t re-ascended the throne yet. Of course they lost to their old coach in heart-breaking fashion in their return trip to the Super Bowl, essentially because of a controversial penalty (but also the defense’s inability to stop anything, I know I know). They came back strong the next year, only to put up what has to be the most stunning extended two-month collapse in NFL history. Now, their veteran star players are either retiring or being traded. The biggest fools now might be fans who think this team can make any noise next season, but who knows at this point.

Anyway, keep your sports-related jokes to yourselves, because the stuff we’ve seen from the local Philadelphia teams over the past few years are more head-shakingly unbelievable than the fiction you can come up with. I’d like to say we won’t get fooled again, but we will.

One of the many "ugh, this guy"s we've dealt with in recent years. (Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty)

Is this the Stretch Where the Flyers Finally Fall Apart?

Because it’s sure looking like it.

Published March 18, 2024

In the ebbs and flows of the NHL season, or any sport really, you’ll have your stretches against weaker competition, some balanced areas, and some portions of the schedule where it just seems like the league has it out for you by throwing an unrelenting barrage of difficult opponents your way. Unfortunately, as we find ourselves with less than a month to go until the NHL regular season concludes, the Flyers are grappling with this last category.

They’ve been wobbly for weeks, and we all knew this 7-game sequence was coming, a brutal stretch that includes two matchups with the Maple Leafs and two with the Bruins, as well as single affairs against the Hurricanes, Panthers, and Rangers. Quality teams all. These are the clubs that the Flyers need to gain points against to legitimize themselves as a playoff club, because you can’t always rely on the Senators and Blue Jackets appearing to offer up an easy two points for you.

Predictably, this 7-game test has gotten off to a sour start with a pair of losses. And it’s been just about as bad as it could be. The Flyers weren’t ready to play when the puck dropped last Thursday in their 6-2 loss at home to Toronto, then they were outgunned by the Bruins, as always, in the 6-5 loss they suffered in Boston on Saturday. The Flyers showed a lot of grit to almost rally from three goals down, but there are no pity points for “almost”. They simply have to get some wins out of this stretch against these good teams.

As of this moment, the Flyers are still sitting in a playoff position, and they’ve actually occupied one for this entire calendar year. But I don’t know how, because it seems like they are merely the benefactors of dumb luck. The Capitals and Islanders are both nipping at their heels for third place in the Metropolitan Division, but neither has managed to overtake the Flyers just yet. And the Red Wings, who could be the Flyers’ main competition for the second wild card spot if it comes down to that, have gone ice cold, losing eight of their last nine. Any kind of competent play over that stretch by the Wings would have the Flyers on thin ice by now. Similarly, the Devils and Penguins look like they have run out of time to catch the Flyers, although you can chalk that up to their own uninspired play rather than the Flyers actively doing anything to increase the distance between them.

Let’s just hope that when the Flyers come out the other side of this stretch, they are still treading water. If they end up going something like 0-6-1 (and they’re already 0-2), it might be the death knell of their season. Because even though softer competition is looming later on (Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Canadiens), the Flyers are not likely to benefit much longer from seemingly every team below them dragging along. A couple of these teams are going to get hot, and the Flyers need to stay ahead of the game. A win or two in their rematches versus Toronto and Boston would be a great start, and the other stiff tests have to be met with better efforts that what the Flyers have shown for the last week and a half, going back to their 7-0 embarrassment in Tampa that got John Tortorella a 2-game suspension.

We’ve said it before, but now is the time. It’s not ideal that the Flyers’ defense is ravaged by injuries (and the Sean Walker trade) at the moment, but the guys who are here have to get the job done. And maybe Sean Couturier can show some signs of life (zero goals, 3 assists in 14 games since being named captain). He’s not the only one who can put a spark into the offense (looking at you and your 5-game goal drought since returning from injury, TK), but a rebound from him would be big.

I’ll make the prediction now that if the Flyers wake up on Wednesday, March 27th in a playoff spot after this tough stretch is over, they’ll maintain it for the final nine games and make the postseason. And if they’ve played themselves out of it by then, unfortunately I believe it’ll stay that way.

The pressure is on.

Felix Sandstrom and the Flyers get scored on again by the Bruins.

The Flyers give up one of the many goals we've seen in their net recently. (Michael Dwyer/AP)

A History (There's Not Much) of Leap Day in Philly Sports

Because February 29th comes once every four years, so I can re-use this in 2028.

Published February 29, 2024

Well, it’s a bit of a lull right now, although things will get busier soon when it comes to pro sports in this town. So, with time to spare and on such a unique occasion, we might as well examine how February 29th has looked through the lens of Philadelphia pro sports history (I’m sure there is college stuff too, but we won’t get into that.)

With February 29th falling during neither football nor baseball season, the 76ers became Philly’s first pro team to play on Leap Day back on February 29, 1964. And they lost, of course. In their first season after relocating from Syracuse, the Sixers took on the Cincinnati Royals on that day at the Scranton Catholic Youth Center in what I’m sure was a barnburner. The Royals won 117-114 behind 43 points from Oscar Robertson.

The Sixers would have to wait 12 years to taste Leap Day victory for the first time, as they beat Seattle at the Spectrum on 2/29/1976. This kicked off a curious string of 11 straight leap years where the Sixers would play on February 29th. They’d notch wins in 1980, 1984, 1988 (over Michael Jordan’s Bulls), and 1992. Pretty impressive. But they were sunk by Hakeem Olajuwon’s 42 points in a 2/29/1996 loss to the Rockets to snap their 5-Leap Day win streak. They’d follow that up with wins in 2000 and 2004, but losses in 2008, 2012, 2016. They did not play on 2/29/2020 and won’t hit the hardwood this year, either. To date, their Leap Day record stands at 7-5.

As for the Flyers, there is far less to draw from, as they’ve only played six times on Leap Day in team history, putting up a record of 3-3. The results:

2/29/1968 - In the Flyers’ inaugural season, they lost 3-1 to the Kings in LA.
2/29/1976 - The Flyers make it a Spectrum Leap Day sweep (reference the Sixers’ win vs Seattle as mentioned above), as they beat the California Golden Seals 6-1. Bobby Clarke and Bill Barber each tally three points.
2/29/1984 - The Flyers go into Edmonton and beat Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers 5-3. Two more Leap Day points for Bill Barber.
2/29/2000 - The Flyers lose 3-2 in St. Louis. Future Flyer captain Chris Pronger scores the winning goal for the league-leading Blues.
2/29/2004 - A 4-2 loss to the Red Wings, despite the Flyers receiving a goal from birthday boy Simon Gagne.
2/29/2016 - The Flyers beat the Flames 5-3 at the Wells Fargo Center. Brayden Schenn scores his first career hat trick, and a bra ends up on the ice. Only on Leap Day, I suppose.

That’s it for actual games. As you’d expect, it’s about as bare as “on this date” can get. But we’ll end by talking about the scant few Philadelphia sports Leap Day birthdays:

The aforementioned Simon Gagne (born 2/29/1980) is the only Leap Day player to ever suit up for the Flyers. He’s second all-time in NHL points by someone born on Leap Day, well back of Hall of Famer Henri Richard.
The immortal Vonteego Cummings (born 2/29/1976) is the only Sixer to blow out candles on Leap Day.
The Eagles’ Al Clark (1948) and John Niland (1944) celebrated on February 29th, as well.
And the Phillies, in their long history, have only had a single player who was born on February 29th. If you guessed 1920s infielder Ralph Miller (born 2/29/1896), then congratulations to you.

See you in four years.

Depending how you look at it, Simon Gagne is either a 44-year old man or 11-year old kid. (Getty)

It’s a Big Time “Prove It” Weekend for the Flyers

Two games against division rivals, don’t screw it up.

Published February 22, 2024

The Flyers got back in the win column on Wednesday night with a 3-1 victory over the corpse of the Chicago Blackhawks, who are speeding toward another first overall pick. But the Flyers are having quite a year, as they are sitting in what appears to be a comfortable playoff spot with just 25 games to go. A good performance this weekend could do wonders to cement that status, just as a bad showing might send everyone into a tizzy yet again.

Let’s have a look.

First Chance to Prove It: Saturday afternoon, home vs the Rangers.

The Flyers were actually right on the Rangers’ heels a few weeks ago, but the Flyers’ swoon just before the all-star break put an end to that. Still, while the Flyers aren’t going to catch the Rangers in the standings down the stretch this year, a victory over their New York nemeses would do wonders for this team’s confidence, as well as for the fans. As I wrote earlier this season, the Flyers really should use the Rangers as a gauge for whether or not they’re ready for prime time in the here and now. Unfortunately, things didn’t go so great for the Flyers in the clubs’ first meeting this year, as the heavily hyped Black Friday matinee was a flat 3-1 loss for the Flyers. They fell behind early, and that was that. Saturday is a chance for redemption for the Orange and Black, though.

The Rangers have mopped the floor with the Flyers of late, winning 8 of the last 9 meetings. And they’ve also won five straight games in Philadelphia. It’s time for this to end. To make this 2023-24 campaign a real turnaround, the Flyers have to start consistently skating with the best teams in the Eastern Conference. They keep failing against clubs like the Bruins, and that will need to be addressed if we are going to get serious. But this match with the Rangers is a chance for them to make a statement as we enter the final six weeks of the NHL season. The Flyers have a pretty good list of wins against top Western teams this year: 2-0 AND 4-1 over Vancouver, 4-3 in OT over Vegas, 5-2 over Colorado, 2-0 over Winnipeg, 5-1 over Dallas. But the Rangers are an immediate obstacle, and a big effort here would mean more than all of the W’s against the West.

Second Chance to Prove It: Sunday afternoon at the Penguins

The Penguins are hanging by a thread. With just weeks to go before the trade deadline, they are teetering right at the precipice, just waiting to be nudged into ‘seller’ mode when it comes to Jake Guentzel and others. Wouldn’t it be sweet if the Flyers could drive the final nail into their coffins? It won’t be easy, since the Penguins will have last played on Thursday night and will be laying in wait at home for the Flyers, who have to scoot across the Keystone State for the back-to-back. But maybe that’ll work to the Flyers’ advantage. Who knows?

Over two months ago, the Flyers took both ends of a home-and-home with the Pens, although both games went to extra time. This time, a win in regulation for the Flyers would be absolutely crushing for Pittsburgh and might be the final blow that gets them to wave the white flag on their season. The NHL season is a slow grind, and it’s often about outlasting teams. By ensuring that their hated rival won’t even be sniffing the playoffs, the Flyers can take a big step here. Teams get picked off one by one, and this in particular would be fantastic.

It’s all in front of the Flyers this weekend, with two big games on tap. Come Monday morning, things can look absolutely great, feel like a mess once again, or be somewhere in between. They have to bring it in these two divisional games.

The Flyers and Penguins will renew acquaintances in the 'Burgh on Sunday. (Gene J. Pusker/AP)

Having “Fun” with the Toyota Turning Point®

Am I the only one who likes to identify the exact moment when things went south?

Published February 7, 2024

All credit to the good folks at Toyota, who make a quality product (my 1995 Corolla is probably still out there chugging along, years after I traded it in) and have partnered with local sports networks over the years to present the Toyota Turning Point®. For a long time, this has been a part of team broadcasts, so much so that I can’t even identify if it’s still an active sponsorship or just is so burned into my brain that it seems that way. (They do have the dumb ‘Rav 4 minutes to play’ during Flyers games, though.)

At any rate, I became so acculturated to it that I like to identify the Toyota Turning Point® on my own in various games and even entire seasons. Heck, if you ask me, I can even point to it after my own floor hockey games or pretty much any event that passes. All the while, I instinctively put the Toyota moniker in there, because that’s just good branding.

I bring all this up because I figured we would check in with the Philly sports teams and identify some current Toyota Turning Points®.

For the 76ers, the glaring example is the Joel Embiid injury. If he doesn’t come back at all this year, or if he comes back in a diminished capacity, this team is not winning a title. They might not even achieve their typical second round flameout. And it has the potential to be a Toyota Turning Point® for the franchise as whole if he can’t eventually get back to his dominant self. I’ve seen this movie before, and it usually doesn’t end well.

Going back to the 2023 Phillies season, the Toyota Turning Point® to propel the team was most likely the Trea Turner standing ovation that got all kinds of attention and seemed to coincide with the club coming alive. Then, of course, it all came crashing down in the NLCS. There was probably a Toyota Turning Point® in there, but I’ve honestly wiped the last five games of that series from my brain entirely. Does not compute.

For the current Flyers, their gutty win on Tuesday night in Florida was badly needed, as it stopped a 5-game losing skid which went back almost three weeks thanks to a lengthy layoff for their bye week and the all-star break. It remains to be seen if they can round back into shape, or if the victory was a mere bright spot in a bad run that will doom their season. If that’s the case, you can point squarely at the ‘Carter Hart stuff’ as their Toyota Turning Point®, since it was the kind of thing that can absolutely demoralize a tight-knit locker room like they seem to have. On the ice, Hart’s final game (probably ever) a few weeks ago against Colorado ended up kicking off their losing streak. Maybe it was just coincidental how poorly he played mere days before leaving the team, but feel free to speculate on that one.

For the Eagles, I’m going to blame their security chief Big Dom ItalianLastName for the team falling off a cliff. Is this ridiculous? Yes. But let’s look at his sideline incident in the December 3rd loss to the 49ers as a clear dividing line here. The Eagles were likely on their way to losing that game anyway, as they were down 21-6 and not looking great. But this was a team that came in at 10-1 and was looking to take a stranglehold on the NFC. Following the Big Dom/Dre Greenlaw confrontation, the Eagles proceeded to go 1-6 (including the result of the SF game and their playoff loss), and were outscored 193-126. The Big Dom ejection was clearly the Toyota Turning Point® of this season for the Birds. Am I saying that their security czar was somehow responsible for their stunning collapse? I’m not saying it, and I’m not not saying it.

I may devote some future space to other notable Toyota Turning Points® in Philly sports history, but I figured that we’d just start with current situations.

So, does all this mean that a Toyota Turning Point® in any given season has to be the exact instance where a team’s season plunged toward ultimate failure instead of a championship, where fate stepped in and dictated “this isn’t your year” even when there were probably still games left to play? Eh, maybe. That’s pretty bleak as a sports fan, to only focus on something negative as a pivotal moment. After all, your odds to win it all in a given year are something like 2-3%, depending on the size of the league, if everyone has a theoretically equal shot. Yes, sports are overwhelmingly ridden with failure, so why not try to remember positives instead of critical negative moments? The bad stuff sticks with us, though. I guess that’s just the way a typical sports brain works, or maybe it’s specific to Philadelphia, to try and rationalize and point to an exact spot where us informed fans knew that it was over for our team.

Sports are so fun.

Philadelphia Eagles security guy Big Dom ItalianLastName confronts a loser 49ers player.

This had the potential to be memorable in a fun way, but it wasn’t. Poor Big Dom. (Mitchell Leff/Get

Setting the Philly Sports Scene for 2024

Hi! It’s been a while.

Published January 19, 2024

No, I don’t do much for this site anymore, but that’s because I’ve been busy writing Phillies pieces on ThatBallsOuttaHere.com, Flyers pieces on BroadStreetBuzz.com, and even contributed some longer articles last year to a Phillies substack. Plus, I work and have kids and other stuff going on, so you know how it is.

But even when this site is seemingly dormant, I’m always mulling things over when it comes to Philadelphia sports. We’re only a few weeks into 2024, so maybe we still have time to look at the rest of this calendar year and see what’s on the horizon for our beloved clubs. Obviously, a lot has happened already, with the Eagles suffering the most predictable playoff fate in sports history, the Flyers absolutely sizzling, and the Sixers winning some of their games and losing others. At least, I assume that’s what they’re doing; you are probably aware that I don’t follow basketball all that much. Meanwhile, the Phillies continue to have a pretty quiet offseason, outside of re-signing Aaron Nola to a mega-deal months ago.

Let’s talk about the Birds first to get them out of the way.

This team looked so primed to be a juggernaut, but now it pretty much seems like the sky is falling. It seems incomprehensible for a team to come so close to a title, fall off the cliff the way that they did, and then recover with the same group of players and/or coaches. This core is getting blown up, whether it’s through a combination of Jason Kelce retiring (maybe?), AJ Brown complaining his way out of town, Jalen Hurts being exposed, or any number of other factors. In the 2022 season, everything went right, they stayed healthy, and they were one lousy call away from hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. You saw the cracks in 2023 when any kind of adversity struck. I am not optimistic for 2024. This looks like a 7- or 8-win team unless something unforeseen happens. I hope I’m wrong.

The Fly Guys. Wow. They’re playing solid hockey, the goaltending and defense is good, and they’re scoring insane goals. Where did this come from? Before the year, I saw some merit in the ‘tank brigade’ mode of thinking. Be bad, get those high picks, and let’s build for a few more years. But you can’t take a season like this for granted. I see legitimate playoff excitement in our future this spring at the Wells Fargo Center, and room for growth beyond that. Did this screw up the “rebuild”? I’m not sure, but it’s nice when your team comes out and wins games, especially when it’s the kind of demolishing like they delivered on Dallas on Thursday. If you’re going to complain about that, stop being a fan.

The Sixers. Hey, they’re — (looking it up) — 26-13. That’s pretty good. On pace for 50+ wins. Embiid looks great, so I hear. I’m just going to assume that they’ll lose in six games in the second round until I see otherwise, though.

And the Phillies. The Eagles sure let them off the hook, eh? This is still a good team, though, and they should win 90+ games and will likely land in a wild card spot once again. What matters is just staying healthy and getting to the playoffs, and then anything can happen. I think they merit the normal amount of excitement for this upcoming season. Let’s hope they make a few roster moves to shore things up and bring some bedlam back to the Bank in the fall.

While I’ll keep up my Flyers and Phillies work on the other sites I write for, my very late New Year’s Resolution is that I will make a more dedicated effort to put new material right here with far more regularity in 2024 than I have over the last couple years. And that’s more of a guarantee than any of the local clubs can give you in 2024.

Future Hall of Famer Jason Kelce walks off the field after the Philadelphia Eagles got crushed.

We're all wondering if we'll see this dude on the field ever again. (Phelan Ebenhack/AP)

I'm Getting a Sports Complex