I'm Getting a Sports Complex

The Flyers blew yet another opportunity to matter

A shocker, I know.

Published January 30, 2026

It’s been depressing to watch, write about, and generally be a fan of the Flyers for a very long time now. Still, despite that, they did have something good brewing for the first half of this NHL season. Everything culminated in a great 5-2 home win versus Anaheim a few weeks ago, and the Flyers found themselves at 22-12-7 and in a playoff spot with the regular season exactly 50% over.

Since then, yikes.

The team is 2-8-2 over the last 12 games (including a very ugly 0-4-1 at home during that stretch), and everything has fallen apart. Even worse for the Orange and Black, it came at a time where people were actually starting to get a little bit excited about them and dream of a possible postseason appearance. The team was poised to make some inroads with Philly fans, given that the Eagles weren’t able to repeat last year’s title run and the Phillies’ offseason has largely drawn so much disappointment that fans don’t seem to be looking forward to this season at all.

As a result, the Flyers were presented with a stretch of a couple months that they could presumably share with the Sixers on the every-other-night-seesaw to try and give local fans something to look forward to and make them forget about their other issues. Instead, the Flyers are flaming out, and people are souring quickly on both the current team and its long-term outlook. Granted, the toxic swamp of Flyers Twitter is just one segment of the fanbase, but it doesn’t seem like you can go anywhere among the team’s fans OR to outside hockey experts to find anyone with even moderate optimism about the direction of the franchise.

Circle back to expectations from the beginning of the season. Were the Flyers SUPPOSED to make the playoffs this year? Not really. But they played well enough for about three months to make people believe. Now, however, they’ve gone so ice cold for almost a month that we are all bracing for their sixth straight playoff miss while teams with longer droughts like Buffalo and Detroit have jumped them and are ready to end their skids.

The Flyers just seem stuck, with nothing good happening at the moment and seemingly not much hope for the future. The Matvei Michkov excitement from last year has worn off completely and, even though there is still plenty of time for him to rebound to be an important part of any future success the team might have, they really are going to need to have some lottery luck and get the top center and/or defenseman that they so desperately need.

We thought that the Flyers might be in the playoff mix if they simply got better goaltending. But while they’ve gotten that (at least when Dan Vladar plays) there are still too many holes in the lineup to get them into the conversation. The power play also remains a joke, again an indictment on the lack of personnel who can actually put the puck in the net. Porter Martone can’t come soon enough, but you wonder how many other pieces they’ll need to complement him.

Put it all together, and it’s just the latest disappointing season of Flyers hockey. This one should feel worse to the organization than the last couple have, because they had a real opportunity this time and let it slip away. Knowing the Flyers, though, they’ll make a late run only to still finish out of the playoffs and only succeed in hurting their draft position. You know it’s coming, because Flyers.

People joke that the team is always “two years away from being two years away”. It’s run its course by now. Make it stop, because they’ve simply been a bad franchise for over a decade, and it’s embarrassing.

Philadelphia Flyers players react to allowing yet another goal.

Sam Ersson and company assume the position. Palpable regret from the fans. (Yong Kim/Inquirer)

(Don’t) repeat after me: Later, Birds

We hoped the Eagles would find another gear to defend their title, but they never did.

Published January 12, 2026

It’s pretty obvious now that the Eagles got by on reputation and a very good defense during the 2025 season, and that this team was missing some crucial elements that it had last year en route to a Super Bowl win.

Even with Jalen Hurts and much of the offense still intact, as well as some great young talent on the other side of the ball, the team was just a step slow all year, and it bit them in the end. By losing to a mediocre and also very banged-up 49ers team, the Eagles have thrown the spotlight on themselves, making us all wonder where we go from here. On the offensive side of the ball, the biggest change will be giving coordinator Kevin Patullo the pink slip at the earliest opportunity. He didn’t find a way to effectively use the weapons at his disposal this year, concocting a far too conservative style of play and just making the most bewildering play calls. Nick Sirianni deserves some blame for this too, but Nick isn’t going anywhere, despite what some pundits are probably saying.

It’s a real shame that Kellen Moore walked after last year, though he can’t be blamed for taking the top job in New Orleans, where he looks to have an up-and-coming team. Moore’s offensive design just seemed to be the perfect fit for the Eagles’ personnel, spreading the ball around to keep everyone happy and allowing for the kinds of big plays that were conspicuously absent from the team’s repertoire under Patullo in 2025.

As for on-field personnel, you can kiss A.J. Brown goodbye. You can never criticize the move to bring him in, because look at the overall results over four years. But guys hit a point where they’re not worth the headache. Maybe Moore wants to reunite with him in New Orleans? Make an offer. The Eagles also need to make some improvements on the O line. This was their worst year in a long time under Jeff Stoutland. A lot of that is due to injuries, but life without Lane Johnson is fast approaching. Stoutland needs to work a few more of his miracles to return this unit to prominence. I trust that he will find a way, because he always has.

The issues with the defense aren’t as glaring, but there is always room for improvement. Can the team get better secondary help for Mitchell and DeJean? Reed Blankenship had a terrible game against San Fran, so he could be on the outs. The team also needs a true pass rusher. It’s nice to get 6.5 sacks from Jalyx Hunt, but that shouldn’t lead your team.

Oh, and get ready for season 86 of Jake Elliott. He wasn’t great this year, but do you honestly think the team can find an upgrade? There are maybe 10 kickers in the league that you can describe as very reliable, and they won’t be moving anywhere. But Elliott will probably get scapegoated even though he didn’t directly cost the Eagles this year, so we’ll see what happens.

Overall, it’s just disappointing to easily win the possession battle in a home playoff game against an injured opponent, only allow one sack, and have a +2 turnover differential, but still get beat. The Eagles played ‘not to lose’ and were far too conservative, lacking the big-play ability and seemingly the will to win that they exhibited as champions last year. Now we’ll all dwell on it for months. It was always going to end this way, though. We were just in denial. But we’ll forget all over again in September.

If A.J. is checking his watch, it says “time to leave.” (Mitchell Leff/Getty)