Category: Sports Columnists

I don’t vote on the Associated Press version of NFL postseason awards, which are the NFL’s official awards. That voting is done by an eclectic panel of 50 semi-rotating media members — and I use the term “media members” extremely loosely, partly because last year the panel included Fox analyst Tom Brady, who also is an NFL owner.

Maybe this year, too. Voters can out themselves, as Mike Florio at ProFootball Talk.com did to himself and his colleague Chris Simms, but we won’t know who all of this year’s voters are until the AP publishes the list during Super Bowl week.

While I’m not an AP voter, I have written a weekly NFL column for years, and I have covered the NFL extensively for 35 years. Therefore, it’s not entirely inappropriate to offer my insight, if only to inform the judgment of any actual voters, who have to vote by 3 p.m. Monday.

Read fast, Tom.

MVP

Brady said Sunday that his choice was Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford over Patriots QB Drake Maye. This, after Stafford rebounded from a three-interception game against the gritty Falcons with a four-touchdown home game against the pathetic Cardinals. Part of Brady’s rationale: Stafford, 37 and MVP-less, won’t have as many chances as Maye, who is 23 and in his second season.

This is the dumbest reason ever. Football is violent, tomorrow is promised to no one, and the only criteria should be the 2025 season. Unfortunately, I don’t think Brady will be the only voter who considers this year’s competition a lifetime achievement award.

Maye secured the No. 2 seed in the AFC with the highest passer rating among regulars, at 113.5, and did so with a new coaching staff in just his second season. Still, Stafford led the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdowns passes, and secured the No. 5 seed against the NFL’s toughest schedule.

I actually agree with TB12.

Stafford it is.

But not because he’s old.

Coach of the Year

This, by far, is the toughest call, because there are so many worthy Coach of the Year candidates, and some fresh faces.

Sean Payton and the Broncos have the No. 1 seed, but he’s done it for 24 years and he’s had three years to build in Denver, two of them with his current quarterback, Bo Nix. Should having experience and tenure count against him?

Mike Vrabel is in his seventh season but his first in New England, where the pressure as a Patriots legend was immense and where the Patriots were the last-place team in the AFC East. They won the division and got the No. 2 seed, but Vrabel inherited Maye, who already was a Pro Bowl quarterback. Should that count against him?

In his second season as a head coach, Mike Macdonald added Pro Bowl QB Sam Darnold to a solid, 10-win Seattle roster, won 14 games, and took the NFC West from the Rams and the 49ers. Irrelevant fact: He’s only ever really worked for Harbaughs — John with the Ravens and Jim at Michigan. Anyway, the Seahawks led the NFL in point differential, at plus-191, three touchdowns better than the No. 2 team.

Liam Coen, the first of the rookies, was an NFL offensive coordinator for only two years — one of them a stormy season as OC with the Rams — before a bizarre courtship tore him away from being OC at Tampa Bay. He succeeded Doug Pederson in Jacksonville, won 13 games against some really good teams, and finished on an eight-game heater … but he inherited a franchise QB in Trevor Lawrence.

Ben Johnson, the second of the rookies, flipped the Bears from worst-to-first in the NFC North and refined second-year QB Caleb Williams. He was my slam-dunk pick two weeks ago, but the Bears have faded. Seventh seed Green Bay certainly isn’t scared to travel to the No. 2 seed now; the Bears lost to the Packers earlier this season and they needed overtime to beat them three weeks ago.

Who’s my choice now?

It’s Macdonald, but only by a meticulously groomed hair.

Offensive Player of the Year

Player of the Year usually is the category reserved for the best running back or receiver, since only quarterbacks have been allowed to win MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012.

My favorite offensive player this year: Falcons back Bijan Robinson, who led the NFL in yards from scrimmage with 2,298, the best by 172 yards, on a team so bad it fired its head coach and GM on Sunday night.

Unlike Robinson, both Jaxon Smith-Njigba of Seattle and Puka Nacua of the Rams will be catching passes in the playoffs. But what Robinson did, and with such little support, reminds you of Christian McCaffrey with the 5-11 Panthers in 2019.

McCaffrey was second in yards from scrimmage this year.

Defensive Player of the Year

Browns lineman Myles Garrett sacked Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow in the fourth quarter Sunday to break the sack record of 22½ shared by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt.

However, Garrett’s 23rd sack came in the 17th of his 17 games. Watt played in just 15 of 17 games in 2021, which is remarkable. Strahan played in just 16 games of the 2001 season, which is all they played back then, but Packers quarterback Brett Favre essentially surrendered to the last “sack,” in the last game.

So what. They’re all great.

Garrett’s the DPOY.

Offensive Rookie of the Year

Saints quarterback Tyler Shough had a worse passer-rating season than Jacoby Brissett.

Panthers receiver Tetairoa McMillan caught 70 passes for 1,014 yards, better than either A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith, and seven touchdowns. No contest.

Defensive Rookie of the Year

Carson Schwesinger, the Browns’ tackling machine, is really the only choice this season. He’s a second-round pick who looks exactly like what you’d think a linebacker from UCLA would look like.

Assistant Coach of the Year

In his first season of his second return to New England, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels turned Maye into an MVP favorite in his second NFL season, running the top yardage and scoring offense in the AFC. McDaniels had as much to do with the Patriots’ turnaround as Vrabel.

Comeback Player of the Year

McCaffrey missed most of 2024 with a knee injury and might win OPOY this year. Sorry, Dak.

OK, let’s play this out. Let’s go back to the third quarter of the Eagles’ 24-17 loss Sunday to the Washington Commanders, to a first-down completion for 6 yards from backup quarterback Tanner McKee to Grant Calcaterra, the team’s second tight end — an innocent enough play. Let’s go back to Washington safety Jeremy Reaves grabbing Calcaterra from behind and dragging him down in an illegal (and yet unpenalized) hip-drop tackle. Let’s go back to Calcaterra limping off the field then into the locker room, his right knee and ankle injured so badly that he couldn’t return to the game.

Now, let’s pretend that coach Nick Sirianni had made a different decision ahead of Sunday’s results: the Eagles’ loss, the Chicago Bears’ loss to the Detroit Lions, the Eagles’ ending up with the No. 3 seed in the NFC playoffs when they could have had the No. 2 seed. Let’s pretend Sirianni had played all the team’s starters instead. Hell, let’s pretend that, because all their starters played, the Eagles beat the Commanders.

And let’s pretend that it wasn’t Calcaterra who suffered those injuries. Let’s pretend it was Dallas Goedert.

Would the victory have been worth it? Would it?

Let’s pretend some more. Let’s pretend that it wasn’t Brett Toth who started at left guard Sunday … and who suffered a concussion in the second half and, like Calcaterra, left the game. Let’s pretend it was the Eagles’ usual starting left guard. Let’s pretend it was Landon Dickerson.

Perhaps no Goedert. Perhaps no Dickerson. Perhaps another vital player who might have ended up unavailable, or at least damaged, for next Sunday’s wild-card game against the 49ers.

Would the victory and the No. 2 seed have been worth it then? Would it?

On the crucial question ahead of Sunday for the Eagles, the easiest position to take was, Play the starters. It required no calibration of whether a theoretically weaker opponent in the first round (the Green Bay Packers) and a potential extra home game in the divisional round was better for the Eagles than a week of rest for their top guys. It required none of the responsibility that Sirianni bore: to take the pulse of the locker room, to understand where his players stood on the matter, and act accordingly. It required nothing other than the simplest of calculations, one that could be drawn without any context. You play to get the higher seed. End of story.

But that context matters, and it includes some relevant recent history. It’s no coincidence that each of the two teams that have repeated as Super Bowl winners in the last quarter-century — Tom Brady and the 2003-04 New England Patriots, Patrick Mahomes and the 2022-23 Kansas City Chiefs — had an all-time great at quarterback. That measure of greatness at the most important position in sports is the closest thing that an NFL team can have to a shortcut to a Super Bowl. Remember: The Eagles played four playoff games last season in reaching and winning Super Bowl LIX, and a team attempting to win back-to-back championships needs every hour of rest and recovery it can get. It’s the price of success, sure, but an NFL season that’s 24% longer than a regular 17-game campaign — and an offseason that’s 24% shorter — does exact a toll.

“I don’t know whether people think about it, but it does, a hundred percent,” defensive tackle Moro Ojomo said. “You think about the Niners when they went to the Bowl in ’23 — they just completely dropped [the following season]. The Eagles went to the Bowl [in 2022]; after that year, they had a slump at the end of the season. It’s insanely hard, what the Chiefs have done and what we’re trying to get done. You play a lot of football, and you want to keep on going.

“You get this late in a season, and you get bruised up and banged up, and you don’t know how much it helps a guy who’s been dealing with a shoulder [injury] to have a week off. That goes a long way. Now that guy’s coming into the playoffs a little fresher. So if you’re a running back, maybe instead of going for 85 yards you go for 115. That’s the goal, to give yourself any advantage you can get.”

The Eagles cost themselves that advantage as recently as 2023, when Sirianni suited up his starters for the season finale in East Rutherford, N.J., just for the sake of trying to snap the team out of a terrible slump. What happened was the true worst-case scenario in such situations: A.J. Brown injured his knee and missed the following week’s wild-card game against Tampa Bay. Jalen Hurts dislocated his finger. And the Eagles lost to the Giants.

So Sirianni went the other way Sunday, effectively manufacturing a bye week for his best players. They had one in 2022-23, when they were the conference’s No. 1 seed, and they had one last year, when Sirianni played his backups against the Giants in Week 18.

“Every year is different,” Sirianni said. “Every year that you go through it, you’re judging this team. Of course you think back to that. My mindset was more all the good things that have happened as we’ve rested guys. I didn’t really think too much about the negatives of it.”

The positives outweighed them anyway. Do the Eagles have a harder road back to the Super Bowl now? Maybe, but not necessarily. They got some rest and eliminated any risk that they’d be shorthanded to a significant degree next Sunday. The defending champs let everything play out, and now they really get to take their chances, to show that being healthy and healed up is a bigger advantage than anything they might have gained from treating Sunday’s game like their season depended on it.

There is a faction among Eagles fans and NFL cognoscenti that hoped Tanner McKee would on Sunday provide a quarterback controversy on which they could feed during the cold winter months. They hoped McKee, a sixth-round pick in 2023, might sufficiently shine in a meaningless game against a moribund team so that he might be considered a viable threat to Jalen Hurts, a two-time Pro Bowl player and the reigning Super Bowl MVP.

That didn’t happen.

That was never going to happen.

McKee could have thrown for 350 yards with five touchdown passes and he still wouldn’t sniff the starting job in Philadelphia until Hurts gives it away.

Hurts might throw three interceptions and he might fumble twice next weekend in the playoff opener against the 49ers and the starting job will still be his, both in September and in January.

McKee started his second NFL game Sunday. It was an insignificant game against an insignificant team playing its least significant players.

In this context, McKee looked fine: 21-for-40, one touchdown, one interception, against the five-win Commanders, who won, 24-17. He threw crisp passes, usually on time. He recognized defenses. He moved well in the pocket. He ran a couple of times.

“I thought he did a lot of good things,” coach Nick Sirianni said.

He also threw two uncatchable passes late in the fourth quarter that ended the Eagles’ chances to win, in the very moments when the Bears were in the process of losing to the Lions. An Eagles win and a Bears loss would have given the Eagles the No. 2 seed instead of No. 3, which would have guaranteed at least two home games in the playoffs.

Notably, McKee did this without the services of the team’s top running back, four of its top offensive linemen, its top tight end, one of its top two receivers, and, after two series, both of its top receivers: DeVonta Smith played until he hit the 1,000-yard mark, then left.

McKee looked a lot like he looked in a similar context: Game 17 of the 2024 season, when he beat the three-win Giants: 269 yards, two touchdowns, no turnovers.

He didn’t face the best of the Commanders. They didn’t blitz much. They didn’t play particularly hard. And, of course, they stink.

Still, McKee looked good enough to win a game or two, maybe even in the playoffs. This, for the Eagles, is excellent news: They have a competent backup quarterback on whom they have expended almost no draft or salary-cap capital.

McKee makes just over $1 million, and he seems capable. Benched Giants has-been Russell Wilson will take home $10.5 million this season. The Jets’ Tyrod Taylor and the Broncos’ Jarrett Stidham each have two-year, $12 million contracts. Marcus Mariota, the Commanders’ understudy, made $8 million. The Panthers’ Andy Dalton and Jameis Winston, one of the QBs who replaced Wilson, each made $4 million.

The Eagles’ biggest question entering the 2025 season didn’t involve the third cornerback, or defensive line depth, or the departure of mediocre right guard Mekhi Becton. The biggest question was:

If Hurts got injured, as he has done each of the first five seasons of his career, and with no veteran backup on the roster, would McKee be good enough to replace him? After all, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie subscribes to the notion that, if the most important player is the quarterback, then the second-most important player is the backup. That’s why he and Howie Roseman signed Nick Foles in 2017, and it’s why they drafted Hurts in 2020.

Sunday’s performance delivered another indication that, yes, if Hurts gets hurt, McKee can do the job.

Until then, it’s Hurts’ job. He’s been too good, or at least good enough, too often for too long.

Further, cutting or moving Hurts before the end of the 2027 season would incur more than $20 million in dead money. McKee is under contract through 2026 for just over $1 million.

Hurts has had his haters since he hit Philly. Every time he slumps, and every time he misses a receiver over the middle, the haters surface, louder than ever. It doesn’t matter if it’s Gardner Minshew, Kenny Pickett, or McKee: Their preferred choice is Anybody But Jalen.

When Hurts struggled from Games 10-13, beginning in mid-November, multiple reports asserted that several people in the Eagles organization were wondering if benching Hurts in favor of McKee might be necessary to mount a viable Super Bowl defense. Hurts’ passer rating in that span was just 68.7. The Eagles averaged 17.8 points in those games and went 1-3. He turned the ball over seven times in those four games, including five times in a road loss to the Chargers, the worst game of his career and the last of that span.

Nevertheless, Sirianni declared that any consideration of benching Hurts was “ridiculous” — a declaration that was, itself, ridiculous, considering how badly Hurts was playing.

In the end, it didn’t matter. As his job security was being debated, Hurts responded with the best game of his career, a 31-0 win over the visiting, hapless Raiders. He further secured his place with solid wins in Washington and Buffalo.

The Chargers game was an aberration. Hurts has nearly mastered the art of not losing games. He’ll even win you one every now and then.

For a team that possesses an elite defense, powerful weapons, and a sturdy offensive line, that’s all that matters.

No matter what happens in the next few weeks, there will be no legitimate calls for McKee to start any meaningful games.

Not until mid-November, anyway.

Dave Barry, arguably the funniest columnist ever and certainly the funniest Haverford College alumnus ever, has a tradition. Every December, he writes a piece in which he reviews everything that happened over the previous calendar year. Some of the things are true. Some of them are kinda true. All of them are hilarious.

Barry got his start in journalism at the West Chester Daily Local News, was almost hired by The Inquirer in 1983, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, and has written more than 40 books, including a terrific memoir, Class Clown, that was published in May. (Dave, when you update the “Acknowledgments” section for the paperback edition, it’s S-I-E-L-S-K-I.) So in honor of a great writer with strong local ties, let’s close out 2025 with a look back at the year in Philadelphia sports.

January

The year got off to a rough start when Howard Eskin, the Edward R. Murrow of autograph seekers, lost his very important job of telling everyone how awesome the Eagles are. Tanner McKee started the team’s final regular-season game and played well against the Giants, proving that he is better than Jalen Hurts, Tom Brady, and Joe Montana combined. Nevertheless, coach Nick Sirianni insisted on starting Hurts in the Eagles’ first playoff game, which led to wide receiver A.J. Brown’s decision to sit on the sideline and read a book called Magic in the Air, which was written by some hack from the suburbs. Hurts shook off his two tepid performances against the Packers and the Rams to play brilliantly in the NFC championship game against the Commanders, who aided him by refusing to cover any receivers or tackle Saquon Barkley.

Meanwhile, the Sixers played 17 games in the month and lost 11 of them, which cut into the listenership for Paul George’s podcast. But on the bright side, Penn State lost a close game to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinals, inspiring optimism that James Franklin finally would guide the Nittany Lions to a national championship the following season.

February

Speculation of a pro-Chiefs conspiracy among NFL officials swirled in the run-up to Super Bowl LIX, but those rumors were put to rest once Patrick Mahomes conspired to throw the ball to Cooper DeJean and Zack Baun throughout the first half. The Eagles thumped Kansas City, 40-22, prompting Brady to provide no discernable analysis on the telecast other than shouting “WOW!” after every significant play. At the Super Bowl parade, Eagles vice president Howie Roseman was struck in the head by a full can of beer. He immediately found the fan who threw the beer and signed him to a three-year, cap-friendly contract. On WIP, Spike Eskin argued that the fan should start ahead of Hurts.

March

The Phillies began the 2025 season with three wins in their first four games and the expectation that, if the team did not win the World Series, fans would storm Citizens Bank Park, bind and gag team president Dave Dombrowski, and throw him into the Schuylkill. Villanova’s men’s basketball team lost in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament and fired coach Kyle Neptune, which reminded everyone that Kyle Neptune had been coaching Villanova’s men’s basketball team. The Flyers lost 11 times in a 12-game stretch and fired coach John Tortorella, which reminded everyone that Philadelphia used to have a hockey team.

Brandon Graham said he was retiring after 15 years with the Eagles. Yep. He said that. There was a news conference and everything.

April

Aaron Nola lost four consecutive starts for the Phillies, which raised the concern that fans would storm Citizens Bank Park, bind and gag him, and throw him into the Schuylkill. Coaches and executives around the NFL began lobbying the league to ban the Tush Push. The Eagles responded by encouraging their offensive linemen to stop blocking altogether — a strategy they carried into the 2025 season. The team then drafted Jihaad Campbell, the first time that the Eagles had selected a linebacker in the first round since 1979 … two years before their head coach was born. Seriously.

May

A busy time. The Flyers hired Rick Tocchet as their new head coach, which prompted several 55-year-old South Jersey women to dig their TOCCHET, ZEZEL, and MELLANBY jerseys out of mothballs and start wearing them again.

The Phillies won nine straight games, but bad news marred their hot streak. Major League Baseball suspended closer José Alvarado for 80 games and ruled him ineligible for the postseason after a drug test revealed he had not told gamblers that he was using a banned substance. Nola gave up 12 hits and nine earned runs over 3⅔ innings against the St. Louis Cardinals, after which the Phillies placed him on the injured list. Then Jesús Luzardo gave up 12 hits and 12 earned runs over 3⅓ innings against the Milwaukee Brewers, which raised the concern that fans would storm Citizens Bank Park and insist that Nola pitch again.

DeJean and his fellow Eagles defensive back Reed Blankenship launched their podcast, Exciting Whites, which immediately rocketed up the audience rankings in Mayfair, Somerton, and Ridley Township. The College of Cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost, a Villanova alumnus, as the new Pope. In his first declaration as Pope Leo XIV, Prevost announced that “V for Villanova” would become the official Communion hymn for every Catholic Mass in the United States, replacing “Taste and See,” “Eat This Bread,” and the ever popular “One Bread, One Body.”

June

The Indiana Pacers’ remarkable run to Game 7 of the NBA Finals — thanks in large part to T.J. McConnell — reminded Sixers fans of those halcyon days when the team tanked for three years to acquire a 5-10 backup point guard who might someday lead them to an almost-championship. Things got better once the Sixers selected VJ Edgecombe with the third overall pick in the draft, allowing them to phase out Joel Embiid and George with a roster made up entirely of guards who were 6-4 or shorter.

The Flyers used their first-round pick on a promising winger, Porter Mantone, though fans remained disappointed that neither Tocchet, general manager Danny Brière, nor team president Keith Jones would be suiting up for the team himself.

July

The WNBA announced that Philadelphia would get an expansion franchise in 2030, provided that the WNBA still exists in 2030. The NCAA announced that it would keep the March Madness field at 68, quelling any remaining hope that any Big 5 team would ever qualify for the Tournament again. At the MLB trade deadline, the Phillies acquired Harrison Bader, who immediately became their best player, and Jhoan Duran, who immediately increased their in-game pyrotechnic production costs by 250%.

The Eagles began training camp, and Hurts laid out the team’s message for the season: “We are focused on 2025. We’re acting like we didn’t just win the Super Bowl. We’ve forgotten that we won the Super Bowl. You either win or you learn. We are keeping the main thing the thing that is mainly the thing that we think is, in the main, what we want to be doing. What is the Super Bowl anyway? What is soup? What are bowls? Who am I? Why am I here?”

August

Kyle Schwarber became the 21st player in major-league history to hit four home runs in a game, raising questions about whether the Phillies would re-sign him in the offseason — questions that Dombrowski dispelled: “Kyle is an elite power hitter. He’s the most elite hitter we have. He’s the elitist elite hitter around. Got all that, Bryce?”

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced that they were engaged and that their wedding ceremony would be streamed live on the New Heights podcast. That way, someone would finally have a reason to listen to a full episode of the New Heights podcast.

September

Seconds into the Eagles’ season opener, Jalen Carter spat on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Carter was ejected from the game and, via referendum, elected mayor of Philadelphia. The Eagles won their first four games, which everyone agreed was awful, just like A.J. Brown said on Twitter/X.

Before the ninth inning of a Phillies-Nationals game at Citizens Bank Park, Duran set himself on fire and jogged to the pitcher’s mound, where he sacrificed a goat to what he later called “the mighty spider god who gives me strength.” He then gave up two runs for his first blown save.

After manager Rob Thomson benched him, outfielder Nick Castellanos complained that Thomson didn’t communicate well. When asked to respond to Castellanos’ comments, Thomson shrugged and said, “Welp.”

October

A not-so-great month. The Phillies lost in the National League Division Series when a Dodgers batter hit a ground ball back to the mound and reliever Orion Kerkering passed out. The Eagles lost back-to-back games to the Broncos and Giants. To adjust to their team’s limitations, Sirianni and new offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo decided that Hurts would be forbidden from throwing a pass after halftime for the rest of the season. Penn State fired James Franklin after losses to Oregon, UCLA, Northwestern, Archbishop Ryan, and the Lenape Valley 10U Pop Warner team.

The silver lining? Brandon Graham — surprise! — came out of retirement to rejoin the Eagles.

November

The media who cover the Eagles grappled with a simple question: Does the offense stink because of A) Jalen Hurts, B) Kevin Patullo, or C) Yes? The Eagles then squandered a 21-point lead in losing to the Cowboys and got pushed around in losing to the Bears, leading NFL experts to wonder whether a team coached by Sirianni and quarterbacked by Hurts could ever win anything of consequence.

Tocchet faced withering criticism from Flyers fans for limiting the ice time of Matvei Michkov, who showed up for training camp weighing 350 pounds and having forgotten how to skate. The Sixers got off to an excellent start as Edgecombe and Tyrese Maxey showed they could form the franchise’s best backcourt since Isaiah Canaan and Ish Smith.

December

The Phillies re-signed Schwarber for too many years and too much money for a 32-year-old designated hitter, handing him a contract that will prevent them from breaking down the roster and beginning the 15-year rebuild that any true fan would really want. In response to Dombrowski’s assertion that he was “not elite,” Harper began a new offseason training program similar to Robert De Niro’s in Cape Fear.

The Flyers finished the month in third place in the Metropolitan Division and on pace to make the playoffs, disappointing those fans who hated the idea of tanking right up until the Flyers stopped tanking. Maxey and Edgecombe kept up their fine play for the Sixers, and Villanova won 10 of its first 12 games, even though no one, not even new coach Kevin Willard, could identify a single player on the Wildcats’ roster.

In a possible Super Bowl preview, the Eagles beat the Buffalo Bills despite scoring one point and racking up negative-19 yards of total offense. Sirianni then chose to have most of the Eagles’ starters sit out the team’s regular-season finale, because if 2026 turns out to be anything like 2025, everyone is going to need some rest.