It’s time to talk about Aaron Nola

Published April 25, 2021

I write this while fully aware that this pandemic has caused untold heartbreak and misery in all corners of the globe for over a year now. The fortunes, or lack thereof, of sports franchises aren’t at the top of the food chain in terms of importance.

Sports are important to our society, however, and they can’t be ignored. Aside from the fan aspect, it’s a business sector which employs millions of people. It can’t be dismissed as simply disposable.

When it comes to North American professional sports at the highest level, I would argue that our Philadelphia Flyers are the team which has been hurt the absolute most by the effects of Covid.

Now, let’s be clear here. There are minor league teams out there (and whole leagues, really) which have ceased to exist in the last year. But I’m only talking about the top leagues here. And among those 120 or so teams across the four leagues I’m considering (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL), I simply cannot find a team whose trajectory seemed so promising immediately before shutdowns began last March and who now looks to be in complete freefall. Honestly, it’s hard to believe how bad things have gotten for this Flyers franchise in just over 13 months.

Let’s go back to last season, which feels like forever ago. It appeared that the Flyers FINALLY had their man in goal, Carter Hart. On top of that, they seemingly had a stable of young (and cheap) rising stars on both offense and defense, while their veterans still looked to be capable of producing enough to make this team a legitimate Cup threat for a few years.

The window was just opening, and it looked like it would stay that way for quite a while.

And then sports stopped, along with the whole world.

When things finally resumed last summer, with the Flyers playing in front of no fans in the Toronto bubble, they didn’t look like the same team. Yes, they beat some good clubs during the round robin portion (glorified exhibitions) and then managed to get by the Montreal Canadiens in the first round, the first time they’d advanced in the postseason in eight years. But something was off. Honestly, I think that the lack of fans was a big factor. The team went 24-6-4 in front of the home fans in 2019-20. They were playing dominating hockey every night. And then that was taken away from the team and all of its fans who had gotten on board and were excited about a playoff run.

And while I’m glad that the Toronto bubble games happened (it was better than no hockey at all), it felt artificial. It felt like the team was robbed of a playoff run, and its young players especially missed out on what could have been a great experience that would benefit them for the future. The Flyers were badly outplayed in their second round loss to the Islanders, even though they managed to push it to seven games thanks to three overtime wins. But they were a total no-show in a shutout loss in Game 7, a frustrating end to a season that seemed like a giant stepping stone just a few months earlier.

It looked like the Flyers might have put that behind them when they came out of the gate winning games to start this current, abbreviated season. But all we kept hearing was about how advanced stats indicated their 8-3-2 record was hollow. They were receiving good goaltending to that point and had a high shooting percentage, but they were being mostly outplayed on a nightly basis. Even without the analytics, all you needed to do was watch the games to see that the Flyers weren’t carrying play. They were putting points on the board, but it didn’t feel sustainable.

Then the team was hit with a wave of the virus, and they didn’t play for a week and a half. Once they came back, it was clear that there were problems.

From goaltending woes (shocker) to an absolutely miserable penalty kill to supposed play-driving forwards who went missing for games at a time, nothing has gone right for the Flyers over the last two months. They’ve posted a 13-16-5 record since they resumed play, sinking them in the standings and casting serious doubt on the long-term viability of many of these players in Philadelphia, either because they look to be seriously done as effective NHLers or they’re young players who don’t appear like they’ll even reach an NHL caliber, at least not the one that the organization had projected.

We also can’t forget about the surprise retirement of Matt Niskanen last offseason, which sent the Flyers into panic mode as they tried to fill a huge gap on their blue line. They never did. Niskanen cited concerns about being apart from his family while adhering to NHL-mandated restrictions as the reason for hanging up his skates, making him another pandemic-related loss for the team. And I’m not blaming the guy, just stating facts. The point is, he would have played the final year of his contract this season, making the Flyers a better team as a result. Even if you don’t subscribe to the whole “Matt Niskanen was the linchpin of the team” theory, even a casual observer has to admit how much he’s been missed this year.

Going forward, though, the goaltender is obviously of most concern to the team and fans alike. It would be folly to completely write off Carter Hart after a bad season under the current circumstances, but uncertainty about him throws a huge wrench into the plans of this franchise. Suddenly, the warts of every other player become more evident when the goaltender isn’t a sure thing. There’s been regression or stagnation almost entirely across the board for the core of this team (except for maybe Joel Farabee). It seems like too much to be just bad luck. Rather, it’s a group of players who was just unable to handle what this past year threw at them. And a coaching staff which has been completely ineffective during that time, whether or not they deserve blame for it.

Maybe this Flyers team would have eventually fallen off a cliff either last season or this one even if Covid didn’t wreak its havoc. But we’ll never know for sure. All we can say without a doubt is that a franchise which looked to be trending way up before any of us had ever heard of contact tracing or social distance is now completely in the toilet. Throw the Flyers’ fall from grace on the pile as one more thing you can blame this pandemic for.

Again, other teams have been hit harder by the virus itself, but nobody across North American pro sports was showing so much promise before the pandemic and has seen their fortunes unravel so quickly in the year-plus since then.

I would say that all of this came as a surprise to me, but when I think about the question “Which sports team will be most negatively affected by this pandemic?”, I honestly should have had my money out to bet on the Philadelphia Flyers.

Published March 20, 2021

Their recent win over the New York Islanders aside, the Philadelphia Flyers obviously haven’t fared as well as hoped, as we’re now at the midpoint of this abbreviated 56-game season. Not every game has been as much of a defensive disaster as Wednesday’s historic abomination against the Rangers, but the team has been much more deficient in their own end ever since last year’s playoff bubble.

It’s not breaking new ground to suggest that the retirement of Matt Niskanen is a major factor in the team’s defensive struggles, and I’m not pointing the finger and “blaming” this on him, but it simply can’t be ignored.

Niskanen’s retirement forced the Flyers to pivot to re-signing Justin Braun. And actually...I think Braun has been good for the most part. He’s sitting at a team-leading +10 rating, and he actually grades out pretty well in the advanced analytics department. Sussing through those numbers, he’s made a surprise improvement since last year, and he’s doing it while averaging 18:24 per game, up from 17:16 last year.

So, a nice job by Braun, but this isn’t ideal. Once Niskanen hung up the skates, the hope was that increased ice time for the likes of Travis Sanheim and Phillippe Myers could help fill some of the gap that he left. It hasn’t worked out well so far. With each player seeing about an extra minute and a half of ice time this year, their advanced stats are in the dumper compared to last season, and they’re each sporting a gruesome -9, though most of that can be pinned on their matching -6 performances in the team’s 9-0 embarrassment.

Simply put, when you subtract a steady element like Niskanen, it puts increased pressure on everyone else to perform. Sanheim and Myers excelled in their roles last year, and haven’t done so when asked to do more this season. Neither is a finished product yet, but eventually you are what the numbers say you are, so there has to be concern in the organization about their failure to step up when needed this year. As an added bonus, they’re both struggling to match their scoring rates from last season as well.

And then there’s Ivan Provorov, who put together the best season of his career when paired with Niskanen. He’s up over 25 minutes per game this year, which is starting to get ridiculous. The Flyers’ resident iron man isn’t having a great season, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel on him yet. Still, maybe we’re talking about a guy whose career trajectory will ultimately be that of a rock-solid #2 defenseman, rather than a truly elite one. And that’s ok if other pieces are in place, though they unfortunately don’t seem to be at the moment.

Matt Niskanen isn’t responsible for Carter Hart’s inability to make timely saves, but his absence is no doubt allowing opponents to generate more shots and more dangerous scoring chances than when he was on the club last year. And not to get too deep into a goaltender’s mentality, but you have to believe that they take the team’s personnel into account and adjust their confidence accordingly. Hart could be putting too much of this on himself, as this team’s defensive confidence was definitely higher last year with Niskanen.

Missing a key defensive cog also has an impact on the team’s forwards, who are forced to do more to help out in their own end. Last year, Sean Couturier finally captured his long-awaited Selke Trophy. I’m not saying that Matt Niskanen is the reason for that, but Coots was able to play a more focused two-way game rather than covering up for teammate’s shortcomings. This year, no such luck. Couturier is still playing well, but he’s not in the Selke conversation.

Yes, the Flyers surely miss Matt Niskanen, whether you’re looking at their PK numbers, video of how they play in their own end all too frequently, or just their current sad position in the standings. Again, no blame is to be had, and Niskanen shouldn’t be so vital that the team falls apart without him. But this is all worth mentioning when telling the tale of the 2020-21 Flyers. They have a chance to change the narrative, but time is getting short.

Published February 12, 2021

From the sports radio station who brought you their "once and for all" series of Philadelphia sports debates last year comes a rehash of the same things we always talk about. In this case, it's picking the best of Philadelphia sports this century (which goes back to 2000, in case you forgot.)

This is Part 1 of me sussing through the stated categories (and creating new ones in the form of BONUS CATEGORIES) to declare what the best choices are. And, as per my usual way of operating, I'm only sticking to the four major teams, so apologies to college teams like Villanova basketball, athletes from individual sports, and a few racehorses. Ok, I think I've set this up sufficiently, so let's go…

Overall Philadelphia Sports Franchise

Since 2000, the Phillies have appeared in two World Series, winning one. The Eagles have appeared in two Super Bowls, winning one. The real tiebreaker here is that the Phillies, while they had a tremendous five year stretch from 2007-2011, didn't make the playoffs in the seven years before that run or in the nine years since. So, thanks to being more consistent over the past two decades, the Philadelphia Eagles are your winners. That's something you won't be hearing too much in the near future, unfortunately.

Team of the 2000's (single season)

Do you have to win a title to be considered for this? Because the 2011 Phillies were the best team that we've seen in a generation before they unceremoniously lost in the first round of the playoffs. Owing to this, I guess it's the 2017 Eagles by default since they had to go through the Patriots to win a title. No disrespect to those 2008 Phillies, who had to topple the mighty Rays. I know; this is a boring pick.

*BONUS CATEGORY* WORST TEAM

We've got a lot more contenders to work with here. The 2006-07 Flyers finished dead last by a mile, and then managed to lose the draft lottery, missing out on the player who'd score a Stanley Cup-winning goal against them three years later. It was a new level of pain. The 2012 and 2020 versions of the Eagles each only won four games, and got their coaches fired. The Phillies were so laughably bad in 2000 that I wrote a whole series of articles on it, and the 2015 version was even worse. But the 2015-16 76ers take the cake. They went 10-72, which included a rip-roaring 1-30 start to the year, four separate losing streaks of at least 12 games, and no back-to-back wins all season. Trust the process.

Athlete of the 2000's

How do we pick this? Do we merely put the best player from each team into a hat and then pick a winner? Without thinking too deeply, I'm going to declare Brian Dawkins the winner. Since this is a "since 2000" award, we lose the first four years of his Hall of Fame career, but that still gives us nine stellar seasons to work with. 

Honorable Mentions: Several of the 2008 Phillies, and the top Sixers and Flyers players, who I'll get to in Part 2. Jason Peters before he turned into a joke.

Coach/Manager of the 2000's

In terms of longevity and winning one of those elusive titles, Charlie Manuel checks the boxes. Doug Pederson won't get a chance to stake his claim. The other coaches to lead a team to the finals in their sport were Peter Laviolette (wasn't here long enough) and Larry Brown (was that this century? Sheesh.) As for Andy Reid, he needed to do a better job.

*BONUS CATEGORY* WORST COACH/MANAGER

Again, we've had some doozies. I'll take Eddie Jordan as the worst Sixers coach. For the Eagles, Chip Kelly turned out to be a disaster, but I don't know if he truly reached the requisite level of being terrible. Gabe Kapler was cringe-inducing, but he wasn't quite bad enough. It's really a two-horse race between Ryne Sandberg and Dave Hakstol. Hakstol had some early success, but it was eventually shown that he didn't know what he was doing. I largely blame Flyers management for handing the reins to someone who wasn't qualified. That leaves Ryne Sandberg as the winner/loser. He took over a sinking ship, but many people had high hopes for him. After two years of disappointment, however, he quit the team in the middle of its God awful 2015 campaign. He hasn't been heard from since. Nice job.

Executive of the 2000's

It kind of depends on how you feel about Howie Roseman. Do you forgive all because he won a Super Bowl, or do you take him to task for how he's mangled things since then? I'll go with Pat Gillick, who admittedly was able to take advantage of the foundation built by his predecessor Ed Wade (ugh), but managed to make the correct moves and got us a championship in his three years as Phillies GM before stepping down. One has to think that the Phils would have added another trophy over the next few years if he were still calling the shots instead of Ruben Amaro Jr.

Moment of the 2000's

This is tricky. Can the best moment just be, like, the end of a great win, especially one that produces a championship? Or should we try to look at individual happenings within a game that thrilled us beyond belief? In this vein, I'm going to go with The Philly Special, because nobody saw that coming, and it was an amazing moment that made us all go "OH MY GOD DOUG PEDERSON IS A GENIUS WHO WILL DEFINITELY BE HERE FOR WAY MORE THAN THREE SEASONS AFTER THIS!!!"

Honorable Mentions: There are too many big shots, goals, and hits to list here, but how about the "moments" that Chase Utley and Jason Kelce had at their parades?

Blunder of the 2000's

Really weird that WIP included this as a category. Do we pick the absolute worst moment, one that ruined a game/season? And how do you classify a "blunder"? Does it need to stand out as unusual, or can it merely be a horrendous play, like allowing Joe Jurevicius to run for miles in the NFC Championship Game? In true "me" fashion, I'm just going to list a few things which vary in their degree of terribleness…

• Tomas Perez and the funniest strikeout ever, which I still laugh about.
• Steve Mason allowing a goal from the other side of the National Mall to doom the Flyers in their 2016 playoff series versus Washington.
• Dom Brown misplaying a ball into an inside-the-park home run, falling into the stands, getting hurt, and never playing in the majors again. I still can't get over this one.
• Does the Flyers fan who fell into the penalty box and got beaten up by Tie Domi count?

In the end, I'm going to choose Alshon "Butterfingers" Jeffery and his dropped pass-turned-interception that cost the Eagles dearly in the playoffs against New Orleans. The Eagles weren't a shoo-in to win the game even if he brings in that catch, but it was soul-crushing.

This will conclude Part 1 of my WIP Award selections. Come back next week for the thrilling conclusion. 

Published November 17, 2020

The Philadelphia Flyers will always be working from somewhat of a disadvantage when it comes to thinking up creative looks for new jerseys. And that’s because the Flying P has been around forever and is too perfect to ever change. Similarly, the orange and black and usually (but not always) white will always and forever be the color scheme for this franchise. And yes I know they’ve ventured out slightly with looks like this.

Overall, though, you can see why it’s pretty difficult for the Flyers to re-invent the wheel. And so we have this new look, their entry into the NHL’s “reverse retro” jersey line. They’re...fine. They look kind of slick, but how many ways can the Flyers move lines and colors around? They’re a bit hamstrung because they don’t have an alternate logo or former color scheme to fall back on. Apparently, this is a flipped version of the mid-’90s “Legion of Doom” team sweaters, but you could have fooled me. In the end, I think that this jersey is a decent addition in the pantheon of Flyers sweaters.

Now, to the other issue. Why is the NHL doing this? The answer is obviously to get people to buy jerseys, of course, because they are really going to be hurting for money if they have to play a shortened season in front of little to no fans. Owing to this factor, introducing this bold and exciting new line of sweaters feels hollow at best and a straight up cash grab at worst. Supposedly, Adidas and the NHL started working on this almost two years ago, but I feel like the process definitely got accelerated once the league started seeing losses a few months back.

It’ll be cool to see the Flyers in these duds, as well as some of the other nice ones that teams have come out with. But it really feels unofficial to me if they’re going to be making their maiden voyage in an empty arena, bubble situation, or some other circumstances that deviate from the norm. Because of that, I’m personally not going to be fully on board with this new look until the Flyers can play in front of a packed Wells Fargo Center wearing them. In much the same way that many elements of sports have seemed artificial lately (or actually are artificial, like pumped-in crowd noise) the reverse retro jerseys feel more like a video game add-on than a real life outfit, at least until we get back to business as usual.

Nobody has seen these jerseys in action on the ice yet, but I think they’ll end up looking pretty good. And I can forgive the rankings that mostly have the Flyers’ new look in the lower third of the league. The most universally applauded reverse retro jerseys, Colorado and Minnesota, pay homage to teams that moved. It was nice of those franchises to wax nostalgic about defunct, loser teams, but the Flyers didn’t have that option. Instead, they did the best they could with a classic crest and a color pattern that is too good to fool with. My only beef is that they could have really gone for it by slapping Gritty right on the jersey. That would have been fantastic, but I guess the world isn’t ready for that.

Each day, I’m getting more and more used to the idea that the 2020-21 NHL season is going to be a wash. In that case, I’ll be fully on board with seeing these jerseys on occasion during the 2021-22 season, assuming things have normalized. But if the NHL only plans on using these sweaters a few times during the upcoming abbreviated season, then it will have been a total waste of time and effort.

In short, I wouldn’t rush out to grab these babies, but maybe next year if they’re still a thing. If they’re never even worn in front of the home fans, however, were they even real? We’ll see what lies ahead.

Published October 23, 2020

This year marks the 60th anniversary of director Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". Owing to this, and since it's also the spooky season, we've decided to re-work some of his titles into tales related to Philadelphia sports. Get ready to be scared...

The Birds - Just as the original film famously had no soundtrack, this Philly-centric remake is also missing a lot of vital parts. In the end, though, it’s not scary at all because the birds just get injured every time they try to do something.

Frenzy - A thriller about NHL teams making aggressive moves in free agency. Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher is uncredited.

Lifeboat - A harrowing tale starring Carson Wentz, surrounded by a sea of nothingness, with zero support from his team.

The Lady Vanishes - Originally about the Kate Smith statue, this was re-worked into a stark look at Claude Giroux’s 2020 playoff performance for the Flyers.

To Catch a Thief - This screenplay was written by Phillies catchers about their experiences working with Jake Arrieta. Zing!

I Confess - Over a decade and a half after his greatest controversy, Donovan McNabb comes clean and admits he puked in the Super Bowl.

Shadow of a Doubt - A tale of Howie Roseman’s machinations behind the scenes as he prepares for the NFL draft. The film rightly concludes that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Blackmail - Suspenseful account of espionage that shows how Andy MacPhail continues to hold down a job. Let’s just say he’s sitting on something good about John Middleton.

The Man Who Knew Too Much - Sad story of how the 76ers didn't bring back Jimmy Butler, even though he actually knows how to win games, because he didn’t fit with what they were trying to do.

The Trouble with Harry - In the actual Hitchcock film, the titular character is dead the whole time, with locals trying to figure out how to get rid of the body. The new version concerns the corpse of Harry Kalas, which still manages to call a better game than Tom McCarthy.

The Wrong Man - Poorly received film about Brett Brown that took seven years to complete. Other Philadelphia figures considered for the title role were Gabe Kapler, Dave Hakstol, and Chip Kelly.

Vertigo - Panic ensues when the Phillies look so far up the standings that they can actually see the Braves.

Rope - A Jim Schwartz biopic, since he's running out of it.

Stage Fright - Aaron Nola takes the mound in September, putting everyone on the edge of their seats. Don’t watch if you’re squeamish.

The 39 Steps - Not really a film, as it’s basically just a slow motion video of what Jason Peters takes before every snap.

I hope I’ve sufficiently covered your favorite Hitchcock film and Philly sports lightning rod. Bonus points if you noticed that I made two Jimmy Stewart movie titles into comments about guys named Jim/Jimmy. You didn't notice that, though. Anyway, come back next time for more obscure and specific stuff that you can’t get anywhere else, nor would you want to.