Bryce Harper: Year One Evaluation

Published September 24, 2019

A year ago today, you all laughed.

Not me, I didn’t laugh. Yes, I had my doubts, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions while everyone was trying to be witty all over the Internet.

Yes, you “couldn’t unsee” the Flyers new mascot. He “was going to haunt your dreams”. He was “a Muppet love child from Delco on drugs”. You rhymed his name with another word. Yada, yada. Real clever.

But, planned or not, the Flyers’ marketing team had hit the jackpot. Any publicity is good publicity. Instead of meekly caving to the immediate pressure, the Flyers (and Gritty himself) defended the honor of the hulking orange creature on Twitter and everywhere else.

Philadelphia truly embraced him as one of their own. Gritty wasn’t pretty. But he’s what this town, and especially the Flyers, needed.

Ah, the Flyers. You’d be hard-pressed to find an NHL team so irrelevant over the past 6-8 seasons. I listen to hockey podcasts and read many hockey articles, and they seem to be one of the least talked about teams in recent years. They’re just...there. Not terrible, but not nearly good enough to contend for a title and merit attention.

They needed something to keep them from falling even deeper into the pit of insignificance. Gritty delivered. The Flyers got national attention for the first time in forever because of him. If only the team on the ice followed suit.

A disappointing 2018-19 Flyers season on the heels of Gritty’s debut was a true disappointment, and it caused many long-suffering Flyers fans to remark that the mascot was the only good thing about the team. They weren’t wrong. Again, full credit to the Flyers’ marketing department for at least bringing something to the table that distracted from the actual on-ice performance of the club.

With Gritty in tow, a new generation of Flyers fans might become hooked, much like the Phanatic has drawn many youngsters to the Phillies over the decades. I truly hope that the team’s actual performance, however, improves soon enough to keep these kids interested.

For the old-time fans, Gritty is here to stay, like him or not. You’ll grumble and grouse when the team underachieves, and rightly so, but you’ll still stay. You’ve stuck it out this long with this franchise. You are never going to leave. Gritty isn’t for you. Deal with it.

As for the other teams in town? They all let us down in the past year since Gritty first appeared. First, Carson Wentz got hurt again, and Nick Foles came to the rescue once more. But a critical dropped pass in the playoffs put a horrible capper on a season where the Eagles looked like they were ready to take a surprising run at defending their Super Bowl title from the year before.

The drops have continued this year, and the team is facing a critical juncture early. It has not been a good year for the Birds. But at least Gritty is going strong.

The Sixers? A very good season. But they came up short in the playoffs. Part of it was their own doing. But part of it was also due to perhaps the luckiest shot in the history of the NBA. It was rough. Gritty has definitely had a better year than them.

Finally, the Phillies. We all expected the team to be getting ready for the playoffs right now, back in the postseason for the first time since 2011. I don’t have to tell you how it actually turned out. It’s a total mess. Thank God we have Gritty.

Imagine a Philadelphia sports landscape sans Gritty for the past year. Looking at this time frame in a bubble, disregarding the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship a few months prior, not much has gone right. Gritty and the double doink, that’s about it. And Gritty is the only one of those two things that doesn’t have a really stupid name.

So, thank you, Gritty. I apologize for all of those who doubted you. I hope they have seen the error of their ways.

Have a happy birthday. I hope the rest of the Philly sports world has more success between now and your second birthday than it’s had over the past 365 days.

Published September 16, 2019

Well, the Eagles lost. But you already knew that. Plus I told you it was going to happen a few days ago.

And while I’m not here to simply recap the game you watched, because you can get that anywhere, we have to unpack a few things as part of this Monday Morning Catharsis®.

The Eagles couldn’t just produce a run of the mill road loss. That’s not their style. Instead, even though I saw it coming, they had to make it as painful as possible. To wit…

Yet another terrible start.

Injuries galore.

No QB pressure from the defensive line.

Bad protection for Carson Wentz.

Ronald Darby repeatedly getting pantsed.

Blowing it late after somehow managing to take the lead.

That’s a lot to deal with after a simple Week 2 loss. On paper, we shouldn’t be worried about the Eagles being 1-1. But enough issues bubbled to the surface in this game to cause some major concerns going forward.

First, the start. Last week, the Falcons trailed the Vikings 14-0 less than five minutes into the game. I didn’t expect the Eagles to pull off something that extreme, but the Eagles couldn’t even move the chains for most of the first half. It was nothing short of a miracle that they were only trailing 10-6 at halftime despite being heavily outplayed.

I will acknowledge, though, that the injury situation definitely contributed to the creaky offense. More than the loss itself, the far-ranging impact of last night’s injuries could serve to derail this season.

Dallas Goedert was the first to go down, leaving pregame warmups with a calf problem. There’s still tons of time for him to right the ship, but I really haven’t been impressed with him so far in his career. I understand the position he’s in, playing behind a stud #1 tight end like Zach Ertz, but the Eagles need more from him.

Once the game actually started, things got even worse, as both Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson left before either made a catch. The Birds are in serious trouble if either misses an extended amount of time. This situation was a great opportunity for JJ Arcega-WayTooLongName to step up, but he did squat. Numerous rookie wide receivers are off to good starts this season, and he isn’t one of them.

You’d think Doug Pederson would have at least wanted to utilize the running game more with his top two wideouts injured, but he decided not to, despite Atlanta’s problems defending the run. I can’t say I agreed with Doug’s plan in this regard.

The Eagles also got owned at the line on both sides of the ball, with the total lack of pass rush being what I believe to be the team’s single biggest problem area right now. Because of this, good receivers like the Falcons have are able to totally exploit the secondary, as we saw when Ronald Darby got burned on play after play.

The only silver lining was that Darby wasn’t close enough to any receivers to commit any penalties. Someone I was watching the game with said that he was surprised that Darby didn’t fake an injury to get off the field, as it wouldn’t have raised any suspicions thanks to the Eagles’ constant march to the medical tent all night.

And I don’t even want to give Darby credit for his interception, as it was a terrible throw by Matt Ryan. I’m not feeling confident in him going forward.

Finally, just as I was making peace with the Eagles suffering a standard loss, they managed to pull ahead thanks to some heroics by Wentz. But then Jim Schwartz dialed up a rare blitz at the exact wrong time, and Julio Jones drove the dagger through our hearts with a long TD on a fourth down.

The Eagles still weren’t done, of course, as Nelson Agholor managed to make us feel even worse by dropping a sure touchdown on the final drive. By the time that Ertz came up short on fourth down, it didn’t even seem to matter anymore. It felt like the Eagles lost three separate times.

So, what did we learn? We can take the positive approach out of this, the one that says the Eagles didn’t play their best game and had other things go against them but still almost won. There’s some merit in that.

But the weaknesses that were exposed and the aftershock of the injuries suffered last night are far more of a problem than the fact that they lost. My hope is that this was just a Week 2 defeat, and that it doesn’t reverberate throughout this season.

I’m expecting a bounceback against the Lions next week. It’s not time to panic. Yet.

Published September 8, 2019

First off, you’re guaranteed to read “a tale of two halves” somewhere else describing this game. Real original.

But it accurately describes Sunday’s roller-coaster victory, in case you were too busy watching the Phillies take nine hours to beat the Mets.

Numerous people were likely headed to the Ben Franklin Bridge and preparing to take the plunge after a wretched first half for the Eagles’ offense, defense, playcalling, and even the beer vendors at Lincoln Financial Field. Coors Light is $15 now? Come on.

Let’s recap what went wrong during the painful first thirty minutes of football.

On the very first drive of the season, the Eagles allowed geezer Vernon Davis to pull off a spectacular catch/leap/run while he made Ronald Darby, Andrew Sendejo and Rodney McLeod look like the Three Stooges. Later on, the Eagles would get burned for an even longer TD. All the while, they were failing to get any kind of pressure whatsoever against the legendary Case Keenum.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Eagles didn’t even wake up until after they fell behind 17-0, finally putting a touchdown on the board. All around that long bomb to DeSean Jackson, however, they couldn’t get anything going. Doug Pederson even called a halfback toss to Darren Sproles on 3rd and 1 when a simple dive into the line would have sufficed. It was a mistake that even the newest Madden player would never make. Awful.

On top of all that, the Eagles allowed Washington to eek out three more points at the end of the half. Derek Barnett was even kind enough to move them five yards closer for the attempt when he committed a very weird offside penalty. Almost everything had gone wrong to that point.

But thankfully the Eagles were getting the ball to start the second half after they won the coin toss and deferred, which always gets my seal of approval. I’m hoping that Doug peeled the paint off the locker room walls at halftime as he excoriated the team for their awful play, along with engaging in some self-flagellation for his own playcalling.

Whatever happened, it worked, as the Eagles came out in the second half with a badly-needed 12 play drive that ate up nearly half of the third quarter. It was exactly what the doctor ordered. In fact, as the Eagles were lighting up the Washington defense for 25 points during the second half, the Redskins offense managed to run ten plays for five yards. The Eagles held the ball for about 21 of the first 27 minutes of the half.

Just a great job by the Eagles’ defense to stifle the Washington attack and tire out their counterparts. And it was encouraging to see the team start to get some pressure on Keenum and absolutely clamp down, not allowing the Redskins to get back in the game.

Washington did score a touchdown in the dying seconds as the Eagles laid back, which makes the stats look somewhat less lopsided, but that was as big of a second half beatdown as you’re ever going to see.

A tale of two halves indeed, although I will at least give the Eagles credit for protecting Carson Wentz well for the entire game. Other than this aspect of the game, though, the first and second halves couldn’t have been more night-and-day.

Maybe this is what we should expect in Week 1 after the starters barely played (if at all) in the preseason. Maybe it’s just some weird thing with the Eagles, who have been terrible early in games for a while now. The coming games will tell.

The Eagles did get fortunate that they only needed to play half a game. The Redskins are lousy. Perhaps this will serve as a good tune-up for when the real competition arrives. Because they’ll need to play more than 30 minutes of football in future weeks.

Published August 29, 2019

To enhance your experience, crank up your speakers and play some NFL Films music while you read. You may also want to remind yourself of John Facenda’s voice so that you can picture him narrating. And now, the actual article…

Each year, the football gods deign to bestow a gift upon us. A gift so great that we are appeased until the next season.

Philadelphia Eagles. New York Jets. NFL preseason football.

In Philadelphia, it is known simply as “The Game”, an annual test of combat pitting the fourth-best players at each position against one another. It is an all-consuming trial to determine who will don their teams’ colors when the regular season commences and who will find themselves working the night shift at Wawa next week.

As the August wind comes blustering in like a pirate, so do the Eagles and Jets soar in to their annual clash with reckless abandon and an enthusiasm indicative of players who have yet to suffer enough concussions to know better.

These warriors, clad in green, do honor to this great rivalry, one that predates even the Rich Kotite years for both clubs. And in the end, there can be only one victor robed in green, whether it be the Midnight of the Eagles or whatever the hell shade of green the Jets are wearing this week.

For the mighty Jets, the contest holds great value. It is a golden opportunity to vanquish their rivals, because they literally have never beaten the Eagles in a game that actually counts.

There have been bumps and bruises and bloody scars. For decades, these players have sacrificed for the greater good while doing battle at Lincoln Financial Field, whatever stadium the Jets are renting out from the Giants, and the concrete tundra of Veterans Stadium.

But no matter the place, when an age-old rivalry renews, there is never any love lost between the enemies on the field. These teams will not stop until one of them has conquered and won.

Aside from the final score, these magnificent gladiators of the gridiron compete to serve a greater goal. Namely, so that fans too poor to attend a real game can still be gouged to the fullest extent allowable. And also to give degenerate gamblers one more opportunity to lose their money.

Eagles-Jets preseason football also acts as a harbinger of the coming season. The hope surrounding this affair, fresh and renewed each year, intoxicates the fans. The season is almost here. We are so close to seeing our best player go down with a season-ending injury in Week 3.

But even then, with our nascent season already shot to hell, we can always look forward to one thing.

Eagles-Jets preseason football will be there for us next year. And always for some reason. Until we’re dead.