The NBA is Rigged

The NBA is rigged.

Eagles Trade Reactions

Eagles trade a 1, 2 and a 3 to move up 6 spots in this years draft

In very unsurprising news, the Eagles have decided to make yet another off-season splash and sent future picks to the Browns to move up to the second round in this year's draft. Obviously this is a polarizing decision by Philly management, and here are our #HotTakes on the subject:

Dom:

The Eagles are fresh off a pretty... *ahem* very mediocre season in which quarterback play was quite a rollercoaster ride. Former trade acquisition Sam Bradford left fans wondering what could have been after toasting the Giants in the final game under the tutelage of a Chip Kelly-less coaching staff. Management decides to sign this guy for 2 more years on a contract worth 24 mil, and then they go out and get their new head coach's project in Chase Daniels for a 12 million dollar contract. OK, the QB situation is pretty locked up in Philly, right? WRONG! I personally can't believe the audacity of Roseman and Co.... to trade up in a historically mediocre QB draft, where everyone only wants QBs because the likes of Manning, Brees and other top tier quarterbacks are on their last legs, and, frankly, other top QB picks in the past few years have been extremely overhyped. Yes the NFL is a passing league. Yes the quarterback is the guy touching the ball on every single goddamn play, but is drafting one 2nd overall really worth throwing away 3 potentially productive players for? Especially when you're only moving up 6 picks to do so, I honestly don't believe that trading up in a draft to get into the top 5 is worth it at all. I haven't even talked about the players yet an im in utter disagreement with this decision.

Carson Wentz and Jared Goff. Before the focus of the NFL talk turned to the draft, I doubt 80% of NFL fans could have told me that these guys were two 'top tier' quarterbacks and not a tight end and offensive tackle from the University of Nebraska. I'll give credit where it is due: these guys are two talented quarterbacks. Now are they talented enough to go 1 and 2 overall in a draft with absolute studs like Laremy Tunsil, Jalen Ramsey and Ezekiel Elliot? HECK NO. Wentz is a proven winner, but the dude played in North Dakota for chrissakes. You can pull the Romo/Big Ben card and say that the guy doesn't have to play big time football to be a good NFL QB, but I could pull that same card with the bagillion other small time quarterbacks that didn't even come close to making it in the league. I'd take the guy realistically at the 5 spot because he is very promising, it's just there are absolute generational talents in this draft that you can't pass up on. 

Then there's Jared Goff. The small-handed Cali boy who absolutely lit up the Pac 12 last year, right? CAL WENT 8-5. As a player, the dude can spin the ball with anyone but honestly I question his arm strength and overall physique. Is he going to be able to take the inevitable beating that he will take year in and year out with this swiss cheese of an offensive line that the Eagles seem content with sending out each year? For some reason I see a Jeff Garcia with hair in his future, which probably isn't worth taking him as a top pick in this year's draft.

Long story short, do we need a franchise QB? I'm leaning towards Sam Bradford maybe isn't the answer. Was this the draft to find one? Probably not. Bad move by management, I''ll give it a C.

Matt:

Welcome back, Howie. You can like this or you can hate this, which seems to be the more popular opinion, but you don't really know what this is until three or four years from now. Either guy, Jared Goof(spelling error but it works better) or Carson Wentz, need some time to learn under NFL quarterbacks and coaches. I wonder if there is a team that has some experienced NFL quarterbacks and coaches, hmmmm. Enter Philadelphia. Dougie P(it'll catch on) and Frank Reich played quarterback in the league and John DeFilippo played a little in college but is the quarterbacks coach. Sam Bradford has been around for a little and Chase Daniel has been around for a while. So they aren't Tom Brady and Bill Belichik but they're something.

The Eagles aren't going to win the Super Bowl this year or the next with the 8th pick or with the 2nd pick. They have a solid defense to build on and a good base on offense but they're absolutely lacking a franchise quarterback. Bradford has yet to prove himself and is most likely not the solution but Carson Wentz, the likely player to fall to #2, might be with the right coaching and situation. Would he work out in Cleveland? My money is on no, and that is true for a lot of places, but Philadelphia is a situation that can help a young quarterback. He's a big dude with a coachable skill set who has won before. Yes, he did play FCS football but for the best FCS team there has ever been and an FCS team that beat FBS teams or gave them a run for their money. Joe "Elite" Flacco played at University of Deleware and won a Super Bowl, as did Kurt Warner who did not start ever at Northern Iowa.

Come 2020 and Wentz is bagging groceries in a 200 person North Dakota town, you can rip me, but until then there is no reason to hate or love this trade. Speculate all you want, I sure am, but there are no definites at this point in the trade. What is definite is that you need a franchise quarterback to win in this league and that is something Philadelphia has lacked since McNabb left so why not go for one when the price is low(er than normal)?

NBA Playoff Predictions

Hey, the Warriors are going to win.
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Who comes out of the East?

*insert team LeBron plays for.* Seriously, LeBron has carried his team to the Finals for 5 straight years and that's not going to change. He played his best basketball of the year to end the season and playoff LeBron is already activated. He's the only player to ever average 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 8.8 assists over a 6 game series and still get blamed for the loss. Andre Iguodala won Finals MVP last year for "shutting down" a guy that averaged THOSE NUMBERS. Don't bet against LeBron. (Side note: that has to be one of the best NBA pictures ever.)

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Who comes out of the West?

lol

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Who wins it all?

LeBron will, once again, be blamed for not being able to single handedly beat a team that lost 9 games this season and broke the record for best record ever.

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What will be the best series of the first round? Who wins it?

I think Miami vs. Charlotte is going to be a really good series solely because of the loss of Chris Bosh. Cardiac Kemba always seems to step up when he's needed (see: step-back buzzer beater vs Pitt in college) and the Al Jefferson-Hassan Whiteside matchup should be a fun one to watch. The Heat should come out on top considering all of the playoff experience they have as well as superior depth options, but don't be surprised if the Hornets make it interesting.

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Which player will break out during the playoffs?

Like I mentioned, I think Kemba Walker is going to have a strong series to finally get people to start talking about him in the NBA. Everyone remembers him from the miraculous NCAA Tournament run he made with UConn, but his time in the NBA has been severely underrated. This season he's averaged 20.9 points, 5.2 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.6 steals a game and I think he shows up in a big way in their first round matchup against Miami.

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BRACKET:

Round 1:

GSW vs HOU: GSW in 4                                                                                        CLE vs DET: CLE in 5

LAC vs POR: LAC in 6                                                                                          ATL vs BOS: BOS in 6

OKC vs DAL: OKC in 4                                                                                         MIA vs CHA: CHA in 7

SAS vs MEM: SAS in 4                                                                                         TOR vs IND: TOR in 5

Round 2:

GSW vs LAC: GSW in 5                                                                                         CLE vs BOS: CLE in 5

SAS vs OKC: SAS in 7                                                                                          TOR vs CHA: TOR in 6

Round 3:

GSW vs SAS: GSW in 6                                                                                         CLE vs TOR: CLE in 6  

Finals:

GSW vs CLE: GSW in 5

The Flyers' Stars Cost Them

Let's start off by addressing the fact that the Capitals are much better than the Flyers. Everyone outside of Philadelphia knows it and last night proved to some in the city that that is the case. The Flyers can hang, for sure, but Washington didn't win the Presidents' Trophy by accident. The Capitals have more skill players (including the best goal scorer in the world), more experienced players, and better goaltending. The better goaltending isn't a knock on Steve Mason because Mason played well last night but Holtby has been and was on another level. And the guys who should lead the Flyers either didn't show up or did more harm than good.

Losing Sean Couturier was a major blow for the series but the game was still winnable last night before two of the top players on the team made giant mental errors. Wayne Simmonds made a bone headed decision. He fell right into Tom Wilson's, an irrelevant fourth liner's, trap. Wilson had set up a Flyers power play late in the game that could have led to the Flyers tying the game at one but instead resulted in offsetting minors and fighting majors and led to an opposite swing in momentum back to Washington. Should Simmonds have gotten an extra minor for roughing? Probably not. Should the top goal scorer check himself out of the game due to a fighting major with less than seven minutes left and down a goal? Absolutely not. This wasn't game 43 of the regular season. This was game one of the first round of the playoffs. There is not one reason that Simmonds should have done more than tell Wilson to watch his back especially because the hit wasn't nearly as big as some of the other ones in a very physical game. If Ryan White wants to drop them with Wilson, more power to him because that trade off is arbitrary, but losing Simmonds and taking Wilson off the ice, a guy who would have seen a maximum of one more shift at that point in the game cost the Flyers any chance they had left. I love Wayne but he cost the Flyers a chance at a game one, come from behind victory. The lesser of the mistakes was Jake Voracek turning the puck over which ultimately led to the Capitals second, game clinching goal. He is not the player he used to be this year and he tried to take matters into his own hands. Rather than chip and chase, he chose to try and skate through a sturdy defenseman and it led to an odd man rush and a goal. That cannot happen. Finally, the captain Claude Giroux was silent. He disappeared last night. You can credit that to the matchup problems he had but he still has to play better if he wants his team to win games.

The game shifted significantly towards the Capitals after the first period but you could feel a Flyers push with about ten minutes left in the third. That all went away when Simmonds decided to be a hero and get sent off with the worst player on the Capitals. No reason for it and he has to know it as every logical hockey fan should.

NHL Playoff Predictions

The NHL begins its playoffs tonight, and to celebrate, we're here to offer somewhat educated, yet extremely biased, predictions. Pssst, we're both going to pick the Flyers.

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Who comes out of the East?

Eric: I really do think the Flyers can come out on top of this one. The Flyers are supposed to be golfing right now and praying for lottery balls to grant them with hockey's next superstar Auston Matthews, but here they are after playing some of the best hockey in the league since the All-Star break. With a much needed break after three back-to-backs in April, and Jakub Voracek hopefully shaking off the rust he's displayed since returning from injury, the Flyers have shown they have everything it takes to make a deep run this year.

Matt: I'm a big homer so I am picking the Flyers but all the pieces are there for this to be a realistic choice. Washington has collapsed before and all it takes is one weak, early goal to revert Vezina favorite Braden Holtby back to his poor playoff performing ways. Washington is the easy series for the Flyers, however. The Pittsburgh Penguins have been the only team better than them in the last two months and, for all intents and purposes, swept them as the fourth game against the Penguins B-team does not count. But anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, especially with a rivalry as big as Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia. Sure it is a long shot but I wouldn't count one of the top teams of the second half of the season out. 

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Which non-Flyers team comes out of the East?

Eric: It physically pains me to type, but Pittsburgh. The dominance they've displayed over the past few months, especially without Evgeni Malkin, has been incredible. If their goaltenders get healthy, they are the best team going in to the playoffs. Washington's troubling playoff history and the fact that they've been coasting for the better part of two months has me weary of their ability to run through the East like most talking heads expect them to.

Matt: Picking the Penguins here is too painful so I will go with a slightly less painful pick in the New York Rangers. They are playing with urgency as their time is running out and picking against Henrik Lundqvist in the playoffs is never easy. Many of their players have playoff experience and, like Washington, Pittsburgh can collapse at any moment under the weak leadership, yes I stand by this, of captain Sidney Crosby.

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Who comes out of the West?

Eric: I'm going with Anaheim in the West. The 1-7-2 record the Ducks came out of October with was a facade and the 45-18-9 record they posted the rest of the way was the real deal. The Ducks went from the 29th best team at Christmas to a division winner. Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf make up one of the top duos in the league, and they have two statistically above-average goaltenders to lean on in Andersen and Gibson. They took the                                                                                                    Blackhawks to game 7 of the Western                                                                                                  Conference Finals last year, and I think this is                                                                                      the year they make the leap. 

Matt: The West is wide open. Every team can make a run outside of ailing Minnesota who will open the playoffs without superstar Zach Parise. I'll take the top seed Dallas to pull through. Chicago hasn't been playing well and St. Louis' playoff woes will most likely continue which will set up a heavyweight bout against either the Kings or Ducks. Dallas can score and if their defense can play, at the very least, average they should make it to the Finals. 

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Who wins it all?

Eric: The Flyers are taking home the Cup this year for the first time since 1974-75. The passing of owner Ed Snider on Monday morning hit the hockey world hard and what better way to end a fairy-tail season than to end it by winning Lord Stanley's cup for the man who made hockey in Philadelphia. This is a motivated team who, when clicking, can beat any team in the league, and they will prove that.

Matt: I didn't believe in divine intervention until recently and I won't bet against it again: Ed Snider's last team will hoist the cup come June. The Flyers have something to play for, more than the other teams at least, and the emotion and determination to win for Mr. Snider will carry them to sixteen wins and one hell of a parade for a city thats been deprived of a cup for forty years.

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What will be the best series of the first round? Who wins it?

Eric: Chicago vs. St. Louis is going to be an incredible series. The teams were fairly evenly matched with a 3-2 count in favor of the Blues it, and with both teams coming into the playoffs completely healthy, this has all the makings of the premiere series of the playoffs. Because the Blues have a knack for choking come playoff time, and Chicago is Chicago, I think the Blackhawks narrowly escape this bloodbath in 7 games.

Matt: Sticking with the strong Western Conference theme, I think the battle of California will be a great series to watch. If we look at recent history, this is a year where the Kings should win the cup, as they have the last two even years, and they are one of the most experienced teams in the field. The Sharks also have some veterans in Jumbo Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski and have put together another great season. These two teams don't like each other very much and would love nothing more than to end the others season so I'm tuning in to every game of this series. 

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Who is the Flyers' X-factor?

Eric: It's way too easy to pick the goaltending here, so I'm going with Brayden Schenn. Since the Mike Richards trade, Schenn has been touted with praise of high potential, and up until this year, hockey fans were wondering if it would ever translate to the NHL. The Flyers saw first-hand this season what Schenn is capable of when his play after the trade deadline, ironically when his brother Luke was traded, sparked the team into one of the best records in hockey down the stretch. Over the past couple of weeks, Schenn's production slowed down and it reflected on the team. If Schenn can provide the secondary scoring the Flyers desperately need to show up, the Flyers can go as far as they want.

Matt: I want to say that the Flyers X-factor isn't even a Flyer(Braden Holtby) but i'll stick to the script and take Jake Voracek. If we've being honest, he has been one of the worst players on the ice since his return from injury BUT he has the potential to go back to being great and help carry this team to a cup.  All he needs to do is find his confidence again and his abilities will take over. That being said, if he can't get his act together and continues to miss the net and turn the puck over, the Flyers could be                                                                                          looking at an early exit. 

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Which player will break out during the playoffs?

Eric: For the second straight year, a Bolt is going to be the breakout player. Last year, the small, speedy Tyler Johnson went crazy, scoring 23 points over 26 games. This year, Jonathan Drouin is going to put his early season demons behind him and show the hockey world that he deserved to be drafted 2nd overall. With the absence of Steven Stamkos for the rest of the year, Drouin needs to step up as the star he can be for the Lightning to make any noise in the East.

Matt: There are a ton of superstars in the playoffs this year and they will likely dominate the postseason but a few names stick out to me because of their regular seasons. Tyler Toffoli quietly put together a thirty goal season for his LA Kings and I think he'll continue his above average season. I would also keep an eye on one of the many young guns on the Florida Panthers. While Florida harbors the immortal Jaromir Jagr, they've also had a few young guys step up and lead this team to an Atlantic Division title. Look for guys like Vincent Trocheck and Reilly Smith to propel Florida deep in the playoffs.

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Philly Sports

Hello, sports fans. Today.. err well.. tonight I guess (tomorrow?), I am here to vent about the thing I hold maybe most dearly to my heart, and also what I seriously wish I had never came to love as a child. The name of this post obviously gives it away; I love to hate and hate to love my Philly sports teams. Born in '96, the time that I really started to be invested in something other than my G.I. Joes and Thomas the Train sets was around 2004 or so when I was about 8 and starting to play tackle football.

My parents knew I was a visual learner so they taught me the game through showing me Eagles highlights and sitting me down on the couch on NFL Sundays. If any of you forget, this was the same year the Eagles went on their magical run to the Super Bowl and, although they lost, they managed to lure me in with guys like TO, McNabb, and hell, I haven't missed a player more than I do David Akers. I vividly remember my first game watching them, when TO streaked down the field on his first play for some long ass touchdown and then squirrel danced right in Ray Lewis's face. This was the birth of a die hard Philly sports fan and God damn that team for making this happen.

12 years, a Phillies World Series win, and a whole bunch of years of futility between the 4 major teams and I'm officially in the past-the-honeymoon-stage-but-too-Christian-to-divorce type relationship with all of my sports teams right now. The Sixers and Phillies have been historically bad and have morons with money (see Josh Harris, Skype all-star Jerry Colangelo) leading our nosedive into the world's worst sports city nomination, the Eagles apparently just hired a guy cause he's good at calling plays but he isn't actually good at calling plays and might have had sex with his former secretary, **deep breaths** and I don't really know about hockey so I'm gonna include the Flyers by saying that at least they're consistent in being mediocre!(?) So as I sit here at this table in my kitchen in College Station, I'm truly devastated that I waited til I was in PA to watch TV because maybe, just maybe, I could be another one of those Cowboy/Texas/GOOD FOR NOTHING SPORTS FANS that brags about their history of being good WHEN LATELY THEY'VE SUCKED JUST AS MUCH AS WE HAVE.

F this article...

Philadelphia Eagles: NFL Champions

Super Bowl 50 takes place this weekend and once again my Philadelphia Eagles won’t be winning this one. I am an Eagles fan, I am very salty, and the empty trophy case jokes are still terribly unoriginal. The Philadelphia Eagles have three NFL Championships that count just as much as a Super Bowl and I’ll stand by that, mostly because it makes fans of other teams mad for some reason. But this brings me to my point: Why is the NFL Championship, the name of the championship game prior to the introduction of the Super Bowl, considered irrelevant compared to the Super Bowl?

Kill me.

Consider the following:

The year is 1965 and the Green Bay Packers have just won the NFL Championship with future Hall of Famers Bart Starr and Coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers go 10-3-1 and beat Jim Brown’s Cleveland Browns 23-12 for their ninth NFL Championship.

The mythical NFL Champion "Green Bay Packers" in 1965

Now, let’s fast forward one year.

The year is 1966 and the Green Bay Packers have just won the NFL Championship with future Hall of Famers Bart Starr and Coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers go 12-2 and beat Len Dawson’s Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 for their tenth NFL Cha--wait, no. Sorry, I mean for their first Super Bowl. Sorry Packers, you can’t call yourself back to back champions, didn’t you hear they changed the name? Yes, we know you have virtually the same team and nothing’s different about the game itself, but that’s just the way it’s going to be.

This one's real!

The Philadelphia Eagles won their last professional football championship in 1960 and yes, it’s horribly embarrassing, but let’s just reminisce over their roster for a moment. Norm Van Brocklin. Sonny Jurgensen. Tommy McDonald. Chuck Bednarik.

Most football fans, and probably all Eagles fans, have heard the names of these four Hall of Famers before, but why? You know, since they played in an era in NFL history that doesn’t matter at all. Like their championships, I think it’s only fair that we just completely disregard their existence entirely.

How absurd does that sound?

Pictured: Chuck Bednarik (left), Norm Van Brocklin (middle), and Sonny Jurgensen (right)

If we changed the name of the Super Bowl today, would we completely disregard the last 49 winners because it’s not the same name? Would the greatest duo of all-time, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, be forgotten in 30 years because the titles they won were named something different? Would this weekend’s game be more important than any other game in NFL history? 

Are we still not seeing how insane this sounds?

I don’t want to hear anyone say, “Well there were only 14 teams back then why would we count something like that?!” If that’s your argument, then why on Earth do we count the first five Super Bowls? They had the same amount of teams but we count them because of the name of the trophy.

The Yankees won 20(!) World Series titles before the Super Bowl was created, but no one bats an eye when those are counted for merit. There were only 16 teams in 1923, the year of the Yankees’ first World Series title, and 18 in 1961 when the Yankees won their 20th and last championship prior to the birth of the NFL’s Super Bowl. Today, we have 30 teams, so why don’t we hear that argument in baseball? What if we ignored what players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle did for baseball, just because they were born too early? But we don’t. It’s only right that we say the Yankees only have seven World Series, since the first twenty were just so long ago. 

Only 7 of these are real, imo.

Of course we aren’t going to do that. 

Because baseball never changed the name of it’s prestigious award for the best team in baseball.

Obviously, football has changed drastically. It’s also going to change again in the next 50 years. That’s how life works.

I just hope one day in the future the Super Bowl does change its name. And I’m praying that after that name change, the Eagles will win multiple of whatever they decide to call it, while the Cowboys are that era of football’s Cleveland Browns. If those Cowboys fans in the 2070’s decide to gloat about their five Super Bowls (and yes, five. They aren’t winning another one anytime soon), us Eagles fans can laugh at them, and talk about how they need to wipe the dust off their trophy case, and say the year “1995” over and over again like they say “1960” now.

Sorry, I’m living out all my Eagles-related fantasies in this article but it’s just so much fun.

I guess what I’m failing to see is what makes it so different. We’re disregarding the accomplishments of the players who helped professional football become the powerhouse it has become, just because they were too early to the party.

Without them, we might not be having Super Bowl parties on the first sunday of every February.

Without them, Super Bowl XLIX wouldn’t have been watched by 114.4 million people.

Without them, I wouldn’t have to write this sarcastic article as a way of expressing how truly depressing life as an Eagles fan has been.

Me rn.