By Pete Thompson
Is it just me, or does it seem like the Fall is racing by? Of course, most of us can’t wait for 2020 to be over and are hoping for better things in 2021, right?
Since I last wrote, the Eagles almost rallied to beat a quality opponent at home, and then actually did win on “Thursday Night Football” against the Giants. The Sixers have shaken up their front office staff. An interesting name has popped up as a potential Phillies GM, but he might want more control than is available at this point. Finally, the Flyers might have a new kind of retro jersey next season. Plus, a former Flyers announcer turned NHL Hall of Famer is hanging up his headset.
From the entertainment world, I finished a program on Amazon Prime that I first told you about in my last column. I also got experience the joy of watching a popular movie from 1996 through the eyes of my girlfriend’s son and my girlfriend, who hadn’t seen it before. As always though, we begin with sports, and my thoughts:
I’ll start with the Eagles as they couldn’t have looked worse against the Baltimore Ravens at home on October 18th. Down 17-zip at the half, they rallied to get all the way back to a two-point deficit, but then lost when their two-point try was unsuccessful. Carson Wentz in particular looked sharp in the 4th quarter, leading many Eagles fans to ask, “why can’t he play like that ALL the time?”
That comeback game came at a cost though, as both Zach Ertz and Miles Sanders left the game with injury and did not play against the Giants. Up 10-7 at the half, things looked really bad for the Birds when the Giants took a 21-10 lead early in the 4th quarter. In fact, the Eagles were down 11 with just over five minutes to play, before Carson Wentz again, came to the rescue. Wentz found Greg Ward to make it a 21-16 margin, and then later hit Boston Scott with a perfect pass to make it 22-21 Eagles. The Birds two-point try failed, but thankfully they held on to win by one.
I saw an amazing tweet from John Clark from NBC Sports Philadelphia that Carson Wentz in the 4th quarter of the Giants game and the Ravens game accounted for 5 total TD’s, 0 INT’s, 214 yards and a 118.2 passer rating. Again, we all ask, “why can’t he play like that the OTHER three quarters?”
From NFL Research, the Eagles have now won 8 straight matchups against the Giants, their longest win streak in this rivalry since winning 12 straight from 1975-1981. Carson Wentz has six game-winning drives since 2019 – and three of them have come against the Giants.
Two other Eagles points before I move on, starting with the offensive line. Banged up again, as Lane Johnson was out for the Giants game. The Eagles finished that victory with Jordan Mailata, Sua Opeta, Nate Herbig and Matt Pryor out there with Jason Kelce. How many other teams do you know that can lose SEVEN offensive lineman in a season and still function?
My last Eagles point is that Dallas is next on “Sunday Night Football”. Since losing QB Dak Prescott to a compound ankle fracture and dislocation, the proverbial wheels seem to be coming off the Cowboys bus really quickly. There were reports prior to the game last week at Washington that players were questioning the Head Coach Mike McCarthy. Nothing the Cowboys did in an uninspiring 25-3 loss to the Washington Football Team indicates that Dallas will have success in South Philadelphia on Sunday night. The Cowboys finished with 142 total net yards in the loss to Washington. Their fewest net yards in a game since 2001!
The Sixers have made some front office moves as they have hired Peter Dinwiddie to be the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations and Prosper Karangwa to serve as the Vice President of Player Personnel. Ned Cohen will remain as assistant general manager. Both these moves come as the Sixers face a lot of important issues before the yet-to-be determined free agency period. They’re in the process of reshuffling their front office, making assistant coaching hires, evaluating draft prospects, looking for trade possibilities and affordable free-agent targets. Here’s hoping the two new guys bring success with them to Philadelphia.
I saw a social media post the other day where Bryce Harper and his wife were out to dinner in Las Vegas with JT Realmuto and his wife. The Phillies are going to face a lot of competition in free agency for the catcher, as I wrote about last time. We already know where Harper sits on this one, and can you really afford to tick off your star player?
The big Phillies news is about the GM position, where there are reports that Dave Dombrowski is interested in the job, but only if he assumes full control. This is GREAT news I think, since Dombrowski presided over World Series Championship teams in Miami and Boston. However, the question now becomes, what do you do with Andy MacPhail, as he has one year left on his contract. Let me go on the record here as saying I’d be a big fan of Dave Dombrowski joining the Phillies at some point. He’s currently part of a group trying to bring a MLB team to Nashville, so perhaps the Phillies can roll the dice and wait a year with Ned Rice as the interim GM.
Finally, we close with the Flyers where their big news in the last two weeks was an internet leak of what their new retro jersey might look like next season. The Flyers jerseys (pictured) hearken back to what the club wore in the 1990s, but come with color reversals that fit the bill of a “Reverse Retro” initiative that league uniform provider Adidas has been rumored to be working on. For the Flyers, that appears to mean a modern-day edition of the orange road design they wore from 1982-2001, except the black and white on the jersey are swapped. Black now fills in the wings across the sleeves and shoulders, while white is used for the striping and the ends of the sleeves. What do you think?
One other major piece of hockey news that must be addressed is the retirement of Mike “Doc” Emrick. Emrick, whose roots run deep with the Flyers, was the voice of the sport. From Olympics to Stanley Cups to Sunday afternoon games in March, Emrick’s unique style often turned a violent game into a ballet of 6-foot men weighing 200 pounds. I particularly will miss his unlimited use of creative verbs to describe the action. He’d say things like “shuttles the puck ahead, ladles it ahead, pitchforks it ahead”. Emrick, 74, has been involved in hockey since 1970, starting out as a volunteer sports writer covering the Penguins for the Beaver County Times just to get his foot in the door. He moved into broadcasting in 1973 with the Port Huron Flags of the IHL. His first NHL job was with the Flyers from 1980 to ‘83. He had another stint with them from 1988 to ’93 and was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011, the same year as Flyers founder Ed Snider. I’m lucky enough to have met “Doc” a few times and was smart enough to ask him to pose for a picture a few years back. “Doc”, you will be sorely missed!
Which leads me to another fine gentleman that we lost from the Philadelphia Sports scene as longtime Associated Press writer Jack Scheurer passed away on October 16th at the age of 88. Mike Jensen in the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote this in a tribute column: The ghosts of the Palestra are having a party, or more likely a pickup game. Jack Scheuer’s local legacy stretches as long as Broad Street north to south and Market Street east and west, to the press room and press rows at the Palestra and Temple’s Liacouras Center and the Wells Fargo Center, to the Phillies press box. In those spots, one or two people got lucky each game, and knew it. They got to sit next to Jack Scheuer. He’d reel you in with trivia questions, parceled out usually a game at a time, but a favorite one involved himself. Who is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Palestra? The answer was….Jack Scheurer. I was one of those lucky ones to first meet him at Temple when I was a college student from 1989-1993 and got to see him on a semiregular basis for the next 30 years. What a great man who will be missed!
On the local front, I’m still trying to get out and see Holy Spirit running back Patrick Smith play in person. I do know that he’s already over 1,000 yards for the season in just four games. Smith, a Colorado State recruit, helped make it an easy night for the Spartans as they roughed up Pleasantville 42-20 at Ed Byrnes Stadium. Ocean City is also unbeaten at 4-0 with St. Joseph, St. Augustine and Hammonton each with only one loss so far. I definitely need to get out and catch some “Friday Night Lights” action soon!
I’ll close with a few items from entertainment as I did finish watching the first two seasons of “The Boys” on Amazon Prime. As I wrote in my last column, this is not your family friendly superhero series for sure…! I found it to be entertaining, but not to the point where if I missed an episode, I would be crushed. If you like that genre, give it a try and I’d be curious to hear what you think.
Finally, with not that much original programming out right now, the traditional networks are looking for content to fill their schedule. On CBS, they’ve taken to running a “CBS Sunday Night Movie” this Fall. Well, the other night, the movie was “Scream” from 1996. I won’t spoil anything in case you haven’t seen it, but it’s a wonderful film by Wes Craven that combines black comedy and “whodunit” mystery with the violence of the slasher genre to satirize the clichés of the horror movie genre popularized in films such as Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Scream was considered unique at the time of its release for featuring characters who were aware of real-world horror films and openly discussed the clichés that the film attempted to subvert. My girlfriend and her son both LOVED it…!
As always, I’ll close with a reminder to please be kind, wear your mask, and be patient. We can all knock down this COVID-19 together!
