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  • The Eagles are going to keep driving you crazy with their passive offense. Get used to it.

    The Eagles are going to keep driving you crazy with their passive offense. Get used to it.

    The quieter his offense is, the louder Nick Sirianni gets. There he was Sunday night, strutting down a tunnel at Highmark Stadium in the aftermath of the Eagles’ 13-12 victory over the Bills, crowing about how all those Buffalo fans had nothing more to say, how they didn’t have so much bleep to talk anymore. He caught up to A.J. Brown and turned to look him in the eye, and Brown shot a smirk back that said, Coach, did you watch us try to move the ball after halftime?

    Did Sirianni watch it? Of course. Did he care? My guess: only so much. If you’re complaining about the Eagles’ impotent offense and unimaginative play-calling both from Sunday’s second half and from several previous games this season, if you’re waiting for Sirianni and coordinator Kevin Patullo to have some eureka moment and suddenly start dazzling everyone with their play designs and a wide-open style of offense, you’re missing the key to understanding the 2025 Eagles.

    They want to play like this. They want to rely on their defense. They want to limit every and any available possibility that their offense and special teams might commit a turnover. It took some time and some trial and some error, but they’ve settled on an approach, and this is it.

    Running back Saquon Barkley (right) embraces defensive tackle Jalen Carter after the Eagles defense stopped the Bills on a two-point conversion attempt late in the fourth quarter Sunday.

    By they, I don’t necessarily mean Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman. They’re happy with the wins, to be sure, and they’re surely thrilled that Roseman and Vic Fangio have worked to create a defense of such quality that the Eagles can gain all of 17 yards in a single half and still hold on to beat a Super Bowl contender, which is what happened Sunday. But you can pretty much guarantee that Lurie, in particular, is looking at the money and salary-cap space that he has allocated to Brown, Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, and Cam Jurgens and asking himself, Did I really spend all that money so Jalen could hand the ball to Saquon on delayed inside handoffs in second-and-long situations?

    No, by they, I mean Sirianni. If he rented a small plane, attached to its tail a banner that read, WHEN WE DON’T TURN IT OVER WE WIN, and flew it over Lincoln Financial Field, he could not be more overt about his intentions here, about the way he wants the Eagles to play. He even put the lie to the notion that nothing revealing comes out of HBO Max’s Hard Knocks series anymore, because the cameras captured him in a team meeting earlier this month spelling out this strategy.

    Eagles’ inexplicable second half offense nearly soils defensive gem vs. Josh Allen and the Bills

    “This is what it’s about this week,” he said to an auditorium full of players. “We’ve got to be obsessed with the football. We’ve got to be obsessed with the [expletive] football. When we take care of the football, it is so hard to beat us. When we turn the football over as a defense, it is so hard to beat us. …

    “This is the most important fundamental we have. We’ve got to be so locked in to this, because as we continue on this year, this is what presses us: the ball, the ball, the ball, the ball. We win when we take care of the football. We win when we turn them over on defense.”

    During Sirianni’s five-year tenure as their head coach, the Eagles have won 42 of the 44 games in which they have committed fewer turnovers than their opponents; that record includes Sunday’s win, when Josh Allen lost a fumble while trying to fend off Jaelan Phillips and the Eagles did nothing so daring that might have cost them possession of the football. That 42-2 mark is a stark and striking statistic, one that has a talismanic quality for Sirianni. He believes in its power so deeply that he is willing to bet that the Eagles can build an early lead, then hold any opponent at bay thereafter.

    Let us raise a glass to the Tush Push. It’s dead, and the Eagles have to find an alternative.

    Two games from the last five weeks are particularly insightful in this regard. On Nov. 23, the Eagles lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 24-21, after getting out to an early 21-point lead. On Dec. 8, they moved the ball well against the Los Angeles Chargers but still lost, 22-19 in overtime, largely because Hurts threw four interceptions and lost a fumble. One could certainly conclude from those losses that the Eagles should have continued to be aggressive on offense, that it would be a mistake for them to dial back their aggressiveness. They tore up the Dallas defense for that game’s first 15½ minutes, and it took an all-time terrible performance from Hurts, maybe the worst of his career, to cost them a victory against the Chargers.

    Eagles coach Nick Sirianni banters with Buffalo Bills fans after Sunday’s victory in Orchard Park, N.Y.

    But after scoring a combined 60 points against a couple of bad teams (the Las Vegas Raiders and Washington Commanders), the Eagles went right back to being conservative against a good team, the Bills. The lesson that Sirianni took from the Dallas and L.A. losses wasn’t, In one game, we took our foot off the gas pedal, and it came back to bite us. In the other, Jalen had the kind of game that he’s unlikely to have again. So we can afford to open things up. No, the lesson he took was, We opened things up, and we lost. We can’t afford to do that again.

    Can the Eagles return to the Super Bowl and win it again this way? Yes, they can. But that doesn’t mean they will, and even if they do, their journey there will be stressful and tenuous, with winter storms and giant potholes. But this is the road they’ve chosen. So stop mentioning the firepower that they have on offense, the players whose talents are being wasted. Stop arguing over whether Hurts is a winning winner who just wins or a fraud who has been propped up by the infrastructure around him. Those discussions are pointless. This is who the Eagles have been this season. This is who they are. This is who they’re going to be. They don’t have Trent Dilfer at quarterback, but they’re going to play like they do. Get used to it.

  • Eagles just might muddle their way to another Super Bowl, thanks to Jalen Carter and the NFL’s best defense

    Eagles just might muddle their way to another Super Bowl, thanks to Jalen Carter and the NFL’s best defense

    ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — O’Cyrus Torrence is a large human being. At 347 pounds, he is the heaviest member of the Bills offensive line and the roster as a whole. He is the kind of man who eats turkey wings instead of chicken wings, and even then he does so only after he has first rolled them in flour and fried them in oil and doused them in melted butter. In fact, Torrence recently did all of these things in a handy how-to video he recently posted to Instagram. His smothered turkey wings look like quite the treat, at least for anybody who expects to have easy access to indoor plumbing for the rest of the night.

    Bear with me, Eagles fans. There is a relevant point in all of this. See, Torrence isn’t just the heaviest man on the Bills offensive line, or the heaviest on its roster. He also happens to be 33 pounds heavier than the man who, late in the second quarter of the Eagles’ 13-12 victory over the Bills on Sunday, pushed him 5 yards into his own backfield and then tossed him aside the way a baggage handler might a memory foam pillow. The resulting sack of Josh Allen was a big play for the Eagles in the sense that it forced the Bills into a third-and-18. Much bigger was what it signified. Jalen Carter is back, and the Eagles once again have a defense that can win a Super Bowl on its own.

    Eagles outlast Josh Allen and Bills in rainy win, keep NFC’s No. 2 seed in play

    “You guys see what he does for us,” said defensive end Jaelan Phillips, who added a sack for an Eagles defense that racked up five total. “He had a blocked extra point that basically won us the game, if you think about it. I thought that in his absence, we did a great job, but having him back is key. It’s huge.”

    As Phillips noted, Carter and the Eagles defense had their fingerprints all over this one, right down to the blocked extra point with 5 minutes, 11 seconds remaining that left the Bills needing a two-point conversion to win after another Allen touchdown run with five seconds left. Until that frantic ending, which featured two touchdown drives totaling 137 yards, Vic Fangio’s unit looked plenty capable of winning three straight playoff games on its own. The Eagles battered Allen in the pocket and held James Cook, the NFL’s leading rusher, to 74 mostly harmless yards on 20 carries. For 55 minutes, a second shutout in three games looked like a distinct possibility, this time against a team that entered the weekend with the third-best odds to win the Super Bowl.

    Highlights from the Eagles-Bills broadcast

    We can’t ignore the fact that the Eagles again came way too close to losing a game. In this case, they came within 2 yards, after Allen’s frantic last-minute touchdown drive ended with a missed two-point conversion. The greatest testament to the strength of the Eagles defense is just how bad their offense looked. All of the usual criticisms applied. The quarterback was adequate, at best, if you squinted. The running game wasn’t good enough to make up for it. The result was an offense that looked about as dynamic as a truck stuck in mud. The Eagles mustered just 190 total yards, 16 of them in the second half. Rarely do you watch them and think, Wow, this is an enjoyable thing to watch. That will be a difficult way to go through the postseason.

    What warrants reconsideration is the conclusion that many folks have drawn. As lackluster as the offense has looked, as underwhelming as Jalen Hurts has played, the Eagles have a good enough defense to make them one of the small handful of teams that will have an even-or-better chance against any other team in the playoff field. Say what you will about the Rams or the Seahawks or the 49ers. The Eagles have as good a chance as any of them. Maybe even better.

    “You’ve got to give yourself points when you win football games,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “There’s always things to clean up when you come out of a football game. But when you come out of a football game that you win on the road in a hostile environment against a really good football team that’s had the sustained success that we have, if you come out of this and think about all the negative things, that makes for a miserable existence. We’ll get there.”

    Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter sacks Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen during the second quarter.

    With this defense, the Eagles may only need an offense that is on the lower end of functional. That’s what we saw against the Bills. Same as we saw against the Lions, and the Packers, and the Chargers. Against a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback, in a playoff-caliber environment, the Eagles defense was the best unit on the field for all but the last five minutes of the fourth quarter. The Bills gained just 12 first downs on their first nine possessions and did not score a point before Allen capped their last two drives of the game with short touchdown runs.

    The story of the game was Carter, who returned after a four-game absence because of procedures on both shoulders. The third-year defensive tackle said earlier this week that he’d previously been in so much pain that he could not do a pushup. Against the Bills he looked as strong as anybody … not only with his manhandling of Torrence on his sack of Allen, but also on the blocked extra point that proved to be the difference in the game.

    “I felt good all game,” Carter said.

    Eagles grades: Jalen Hurts is silenced in second half; Jalyx Hunt’s breakout game helps beat the Bills

    It’s funny how he always looks like the biggest player on the field, even when he isn’t. On a unit that is brimming with talent around him, Carter’s presence makes the Eagles the caliber of unit that can win a Super Bowl on its own.

    At this rate, it might have to.

  • Matt Strahm, the seventh inning, and Dave Dombrowski’s high-risk trade

    Matt Strahm, the seventh inning, and Dave Dombrowski’s high-risk trade

    There were some signs that the Phillies and Matt Strahm weren’t long for this world. Small ones. The kind you see in a lot of relationships between headstrong people. Certainly nothing that suggested things were fractured beyond repair. Still, there was enough smoke to at least dampen the surprise when the Phillies decided to trade their versatile setup man to the Kansas City Royals last week.

    Whatever the rationale for trading Strahm, his departure reopens a major question that appeared to be solved when the Phillies signed veteran high-leverage righty Brad Keller:

    Will that Thomson have enough depth at the back of his bullpen to avoid another season of Russian roulette in the sixth and seventh innings?

    We tend to focus on the eighth and ninth innings when assessing the strength of a team’s bullpen. But when you look at the game’s truly elite units, you’ll usually find that they are just as dominant in the bridge to their setup/closer combo. Think about the 2008-era Phillies. Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge were one of the best setup/closer combos in the game. But think about all of the big outs you saw from guys like Chad Durbin and J.C. Romero in situations that were just as pivotal as the ones Madson and Lidge would face.

    The NFL’s stadium greed, the Flyers’ missing component, and other thoughts

    A more recent example is last year’s San Diego Padres. The most dominant bullpen in the majors by a wide margin in 2025, San Diego relievers ranked ninth in the majors in total batters faced in the seventh inning while also allowing the fourth-fewest runs. The correlation between those two numbers makes sense: the better a manager’s options in the seventh inning, the more likely he is to go to that option rather than attempt to stretch his starting pitcher. Same goes for the sixth.

    Those were the innings that killed the Phillies in their NLDS loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Eight of the 13 runs that the Phillies allowed over four games came in the seventh inning. Another two came in the sixth inning.

    Not all of those runs were charged to the bullpen. But that’s not the whole story. Think about the seventh inning of Game 2, when Thomson stuck with Jesús Luzardo rather than going to his bullpen. Luzardo allowed two runners to reach base, both of whom ended up scoring off Orion Kerkering, who then allowed two runs of his own.

    Phillies manager Rob Thomson has been forced to lean on his starters because of a thin bullpen.

    A similar situation unfolded in the seventh inning of Game 4. Cristopher Sánchez took a 1-0 lead into the bottom half of the frame but allowed two of three batters to reach before Thomson pulled him. In fact, that game was Exhibit A for why a team needs at least three, and ideally four, arms who can thrive in situations where the outcome is in the balance. Not only did Thomson use closer Jhoan Duran in the seventh, and for five outs, he went to Luzardo for five outs in extras. The only other actual reliever who pitched in the first 10 innings: Matt Strahm.

    In that context, it sure looks puzzling that the Phillies decided to trade Strahm for a middle reliever with a light big league track record (Jonathan Bowlan). How does a guy go from being a manager’s second-most-trustworthy option in a do-or-die postseason game to superfluous in barely two months?

    Here was the explanation from Dave Dombrowski, who pointed out the presence of fellow lefties José Alvarado and fly-ball on the roster.

    “We didn’t necessarily think we needed all three,” the Phillies’ president said. “[Strahm is] a year away from free agency. We were able to get a guy that we liked who has six years of [club control], and we think can help us right away. So you have to give to get. And we still feel good with our left-handers in the bullpen.”

    Why waste a Christmas wish on the Eagles? Phillies, Sixers need all the help they can get

    Which is all well and good. Except, the Phillies never looked at Strahm like a typical lefty. He was even more effective against righties, in fact, with a .585 OPS against in 2025.

    While the Phillies may like Bowlan, who has an impressive frame and an intriguing pitch mix as well as six more years of club control (albeit at the age of 29), Strahm’s presence in trade rumors over the last several weeks suggests the Phillies weren’t necessarily targeting the Royals’ righty. The driving force in this trade was that the Phillies were ready to move on from Strahm.

    For some justifiable reasons.

    Most conspicuous were Strahm’s comments after Kerkering’s fielding error in the Phillies’ NLDS elimination loss to the Dodgers, when he suggested that the team didn’t do enough pitcher’s fielding practice. A few days later, Dombrowski disputed Strahm’s characterization, going so far as to point out that Strahm did not participate in the PFP drills the team did have before the NLDS.

    Not exactly bridge-burning stuff, there. But Strahm also showed some signs of decline in his age-33 season. When he was a well-deserved All-Star in 2024, he struck out a third of the batters he faced while walking 4.6% of them. Last year, both of those metrics worsened. He still struck out a solid 27.3% of batters, but his walk rate rose by almost 50%.

    In fact, Strahm’s underlying results declined across the board, a clear indication that his stuff had diminished. Always a fly-ball pitcher, Strahm’s ground-ball rate plummeted by nearly a third in 2025, dropping from 31.9% to 23.8%. That decline correlated with a noticeable drop in life on his fastball, with his average velocity falling from 93.4 in 2024 to 92.3 in 2025, per Statcast.

    Only four relievers in the majors have logged more than his 212⅔ innings since the Phillies signed him in 2023, three of them are younger than Strahm.

    Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm yells into his glove after the Los Angeles Dodgers score three runs in the seventh inning in Game 1 of the NLDS.

    There’s a realistic chance that this move looks like a nothingburger at worst by the end of next season.

    Make no mistake, though. It’s a move that weakens the Phillies bullpen in the short term. Mostly, it puts a lot more pressure on Duran, Keller, and Alvarado to remain healthy and effective. If all three pitch to their potential, the Phillies will be plenty OK in tight games. But Alvarado is in his decline phase and is coming off a season where he missed 80 games and the postseason because of a PED suspension. Keller could be a one-year wonder. Behind them is Kerkering, who has yet to blossom into the high-leverage ace the Phillies envisioned and who will have to overcome the psychological trauma of his debilitating mistake in Game 4 of the NLDS.

    No team would be comfortable with those kind of question marks in the ninth inning. But the seventh can be just as important, particularly when your roster is built around its starting rotation. Last year, Phillies relievers allowed the fifth-most runs in the majors in seventh innings, despite facing the fewest batters (513, or 101 fewer than the Padres). It has been a long-running theme under Dombrowski. Since 2021, the Phillies’ bullpen has the ninth-highest seventh-inning ERA in the majors (4.46), per FanGraphs.

    Trading Strahm was a defensible move. But it could easily become one that Dombrowski regrets.

  • The NFL’s stadium greed, the Flyers’ missing component, and other thoughts

    The NFL’s stadium greed, the Flyers’ missing component, and other thoughts

    First and final thoughts …

    Clark Hunt and his family, who own the Kansas City Chiefs and are worth a reported $25 billion, are going to build a new domed stadium for the team in Wyandotte County, Kan. Wait, that’s not quite right. The Hunts aren’t really the ones building it. The construction is projected to take $3 billion to complete, but $1.8 billion — 60% of the cost — will come from Kansas taxpayers.

    That’s OK, though, because once the stadium is finished, it’ll be a gleaming football palace where the Chiefs’ opponents will never have to face harsh Midwest winter conditions during December and January. The teams will play football the way it was meant to be played: inside an aseptic arena where the temperature is always 72.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

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    Best of all, the NFL is sure to hold at least one Super Bowl at the stadium. And by at least one, I mean one, because if there’s anywhere that the celebrities and fat cats and influencers who populate Super Bowl week can’t wait to go, it’s … the Missouri-Kansas border.

    What we’re seeing here, of course, is the privatization of profit and the socialization of cost, a dynamic as old as the modern multibillion-dollar industry of pro sports. What we’re also seeing — and it will accelerate — is the slow death of the un-rich sports crowd. Those with the financial means to go to a game in the Chiefs’ new stadium — or in a new Eagles stadium, if Jeffrey Lurie eventually gets his way — don’t want cold and snow to mar their fun. They don’t want the experience they’re having to be common or accessible.

    Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts kneels in the endzone before a game at the Kansas City Chiefs on Sept 14.

    Attending a major pro sports contest became a luxury buy long ago. Now it’s on its way to becoming a sterile exercise only a select few can afford, and those fans who care the most, who drive interest and revenue in these games boys and girls can play, end up paying anyway, even while they are kept on the other side of the window.

    Still seeking a star

    If the NHL season had ended on Christmas … well, that would be a really short NHL season. Also, the Flyers would have qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2020, and Trevor Zegras would have been considered a brilliant offseason acquisition.

    But the season, of course, isn’t even half-finished yet, and, given the Flyers’ recent history, there’s still plenty of reason to wonder whether they’ll keep up a postseason-worthy pace. That natural skepticism accounts for some of the relative indifference to their relative success so far. People will believe the Flyers are a good team when they see the Flyers be a good team over a full 82 games.

    After falling out of favor in Anaheim, Trevor Zegras has rebounded in Philly, where he has 37 points at Christmas, besting his mark for the entire 2024-25 season.

    There’s another reason, though, why the Flyers haven’t penetrated the broader, more mainstream public conversation about Philly sports so far: They don’t have any stars.

    At his current pace, Zegras would finish with 34 goals and 83 points over 82 games, which would lead the team but place him 31st in the league in points per game. Offense has been up in the NHL for a while. This would be the fifth straight season that the average team has scored at least three goals each game, the first such stretch in the league since the early 1990s.

    Yet the Flyers haven’t been part of that surge in scoring. They have not had a player with 35 goals or more in a season since 2011-12, when Scott Hartnell had 37. They have not had a player with 40 goals or more in a season since 2008-09, when Jeff Carter had 46. And they have not had a player with 50 goals or more in a season since 1997-98, when John LeClair had 51.

    There’s no denying the Flyers’ good vibes. What’s behind this season’s positive shift?

    That recent history also explains part of the frustration and disgruntlement from the fan base over Matvei Michkov’s sluggish sophomore season. Michkov was supposed to be the franchise’s next superstar, and he still can be, but his regression has at least delayed his development into the kind of player who even a hockey neophyte knows and feels compelled to watch. The Flyers haven’t had such a star since Eric Lindros, and, at the moment, they still don’t.

    Casty got one thing right

    A tip of the cap to Mark Whicker, an all-time great Philadelphia sports columnist, for noting that Nick Castellanos delivered the quote of the year in Philly sports.

    After Phillies pitchers Cristopher Sánchez and Ranger Suárez were snubbed for the National League All-Star team in favor of the Milwaukee Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski, who had made just five starts, Castellanos said:

    “This is turning into the Savannah Bananas.”

    Nick Castellanos is likely out in Philly after a couple tough years in the field and at the mound.

    No offense to the Bananas, who make baseball less stuffy and lots more fun for loads of kids in America. But Castellanos’ point about the All-Star Game being more than just a meaningless exhibition — that it is, still, supposed to be an acknowledgment of and accolade for those players who have performed best through a season’s first half — was well taken. Whatever one might think of his performance on the field in 2025, he launched that answer into the upper deck.

    Good stuff, Gramps

    In his two games with the Indianapolis Colts this season, nearly five years after he had retired, Philip Rivers — 44 years old, father of 10, grandfather of one — has completed 41 of 62 passes for 397 yards and three touchdowns.

    How hard can it be to play quarterback in the NFL if Pop-Pop can do it this well?

  • Why waste a Christmas wish on the Eagles? Phillies, Sixers need all the help they can get

    Why waste a Christmas wish on the Eagles? Phillies, Sixers need all the help they can get

    Since you’ll most likely be reading this column on Christmas Day, here’s a question in the spirit of the season for Philly sports fans:

    What would be your Christmas wish?

    Don’t be hasty and just say, “Another Lombardi Trophy.”

    Yes, it’s football season, and yes, the Eagles secured a home playoff game last Saturday, but the rest of the teams, in one manner or another, are making strides and could use your help.

    The Eagles don’t need it.

    They won it all just last season, and they also won seven years ago, and they also went to the Super Bowl three years ago. Their window for winning titles will remain open for at least another two years.

    I ran a X poll from Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening, which was this column’s deadline.

    For me, the Eagles were the last team for whom I’d hope Santa would bring some luck.

    What about the Phillies? They’ve only ever won two World Series, the last in 2008, and none since John Middleton began spending like he’s the love child of Nero and Louis XIV. They’re my choice.

    And whither The Process, now in its 13th fruitless season?

    Finally, no team has tried longer and harder to build a winner than the Flyers, now engaged in an earnest rebuild.

    Let’s investigate them all.

    Zack Wheeler has said he’s retiring after the 2027 season.

    Phillies, 52.3%

    Most folks agreed: This club needs to eat a whole bushel of apples on Christmas night (a Chinese tradition symbolizing safety and peace). Zack Wheeler is 35. Bryce Harper is 33. Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber are 32. Tick, tick, tick.

    Wheeler, perhaps the best pitcher in franchise history, has said he’s retiring after his contract expires in 2027. Harper will then be 35, Turner and Schwarber 34. The only viable replacement for these stars is starter Cristopher Sánchez, who is 29, and who will demand an astronomical contract in 2031 — when he’s 34.

    The realistic window for the Phillies ends when Wheeler walks in two years. As such, Phillies faithful should wish for this:

    • Wheeler returns from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in May and is back to normal by August.
    • Harper outperforms an injury-affected 2025 season that president Dave Dombrowski accurately (if unwisely) said he considered not “elite,” with a .844 OPS, and again produces at an elite level — say, the .937 OPS he averaged in the 10 previous seasons, which was best among all players with at least 5,000 plate appearances.
    • Turner hits .300, as he has since 2024.
    • Schwarber matches his average of 46 homers in his four previous Phillies seasons.
    • Closer Jhoan Duran and setup man José Alvarado are dominant for seven months.
    • Sánchez is, once again, a horse.

    That’s a lot to ask for, but, hey, Christmas comes but once a year.

    Howie Roseman (left), Nick Sirianni, and the Eagles don’t need to rely on Christmas wishes.

    Eagles 36.7%

    A pleasant surprise. I not only thought the Eagles would win the poll with a plurality — say, 45% — I thought that Philly fans wouldn’t be sophisticated enough to accept the logic that makes the Phillies the clear choice.

    Apologies.

    And good job.

    After all, why squander a Christmas wish on a team that doesn’t need it? Thanks to the era of ownership that began with Jeffrey Lurie’s purchase of the team in 1994 — 19 playoff appearances, four Super Bowl appearances, and two titles — the Eagles are, by far, the best team in town. There’s no need for the Birds to put a carp scale in their wallet and carry it around all year (a German/Polish tradition).

    The Birds have given Philadelphia the best seven-year run of any team in the city’s history, and there’s no reason to think that run is anywhere close to ending.

    Howie Roseman has constructed a roster with contracts that ensure at least two more peak years of Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Landon Dickerson, Jordan Mailata, Cam Jurgens, Jalen Carter, Zack Baun, Cooper DeJean, and, last but not least, Quinyon Mitchell, who might be the best of them all.

    Further, head coach Nick Sirianni and his two best assistants, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, aren’t going anywhere. No team in Philadelphia, in the NFC East, or in the entire NFL is better positioned for continued success than the Eagles.

    Don’t waste a wish on them.

    Flyers goaltender Dan Vladař against the Vancouver Canucks on Dec. 22.

    Flyers, 8.9%

    This is a great result for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the first time Donald Trump was president.

    Dan Vladař has a top-10 2.39 goals-against average, which, if the season ended today, would be the best GAA for a starting Flyers goalie in a decade. Similarly, the Flyers haven’t sent a defenseman to the All-Star game since Kimmo Timonen in 2012.

    These are institutional issues that cannot be undone, no matter how many spider webs you use to decorate the tree (a Ukrainian tradition and the origin of tinsel).

    That said, Vladař, having a career year, is under contract through next season. The team has hovered around the playoff bubble all season. They should lock up Trevor Zegras, a 24-year-old trade gamble who can be a restricted free agent after this season but who leads them in goals and assists.

    The wish: Vladař stays steady, Zegras continues to produce, and error-prone young talent Matvei Michkov eventually prospers under demanding new coach Rick Tocchet. If that happens, the Flyers’ goal to once again be a perennial playoff team is not unreasonable, beginning this spring.

    Joel Embiid (21) shoots against the Indiana Pacers during the second quarter at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

    Sixers, 2.1%

    Like all X polls, mine was unscientific, since it mainly drew from the folks who follow me, who obviously possess high degrees of discernment and taste.

    Maybe that’s why poll respondents seem to have utterly abandoned the Sixers.

    More than any Philly franchise, this bad-luck franchise needs to burn some shoes (a Greek Christmas tradition). I can’t blame the respondents, what with the team’s egregious misevaluations of talent; its mismanagement of the draft, free agency, and player development; not to mention the self-inflicted dramas of Ben Simmons, James Harden, and, of course, Joel Embiid, whose continued entitlement and incredible fragility have exhausted the patience of the populace.

    That said, they’re still ours, and they’re not bad. Tyrese Maxey’s talent and exuberance provide an anchor, the potential of rookie überathlete VJ Edgecombe, the increased presence of Paul George, an energetic supporting cast, and superb coaching from Nick Nurse have made this edition of the Sixers the most watchable team since The Process began in 2013.

    Sixers takeaways: Winless with their Big Three, Joel Embiid injury scare, and more from loss to Nets

    As for the big guy, like him or loathe him, Embiid’s presence makes them markedly better, especially if he is active on the defensive end, which, if you know the game, always has been his greatest value. As of Tuesday, Embiid’s knees had him on pace to play 33 games. The wish:

    By the time the season ends in mid-April, the Sixers can get him to 41 games, which is half the schedule. At that point, if he can play every other day, which is a typical playoff schedule, they not only would have a chance to win a playoff round, but they also would have a template for the next two seasons, the final years of George’s monster contract.

    But 2%?

    Even with a likable young trio, Embiid’s toxic presence has, for most people, ruined the image of the only team I ever cared for (and that, only as a youth).

  • Hey Eagles fans, show some sympathy to Buffalo Bills lifers. You were just like them once.

    Hey Eagles fans, show some sympathy to Buffalo Bills lifers. You were just like them once.

    For a long time when it came to sports, Buffalo was Diet Philadelphia. Similar, but with a little less. A smaller city, yes. Half as many major pro franchises, yes. But those teams — the Bills in the NFL, the Sabres in the NHL — have always occupied an outsized importance within the culture of the region. They mattered to the people of Buffalo as much or more than the Eagles, the Phillies, the Sixers, and the Flyers mattered to the people of Philadelphia.

    Oh, and there was one other common thread for decades: None of those teams ever won a championship.

    Not ever ever, but close enough. The Bills won back-to-back titles in the American Football League in 1964 and ’65, and Philadelphia had that wonderful 10-year stretch, from 1973-83, when the Flyers won two Stanley Cups, the Phillies won a World Series, the Eagles reached a Super Bowl, and the Sixers won an NBA championship. But for 25 years — until the Phillies won the 2008 World Series — then another nine-plus, the towns could bond through being blue-collar bridesmaids.

    Eagles fans cheer after the win against the hapless Raiders at Lincoln Financial Field on Dec. 14.

    Recently, though, the Eagles have altered that dynamic. They won a Super Bowl in 2018, then another earlier this year, and as they prepare to face the Bills this Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., they have quelled much of the anger and anxiety that once characterized Philadelphia sports fandom. It might not seem that way, with the attention paid to Jalen Hurts’ play and the worry over the Eagles’ chance to repeat as league champs, but it’s true. The atmosphere was much worse during the Buddy Ryan and Andy Reid eras.

    For Buffalo, though, there has been no great expulsion of joy and relief. In their 55 years of existence, the Sabres have never won a Stanley Cup and have reached the Final just twice, losing to the Flyers in 1975 and to the Dallas Stars (on Brett Hull’s disputed triple-overtime goal) in 1999. What’s arguably worse, for a city that loves hockey as much or more than any in the United States, is that the Sabres haven’t even qualified for the playoffs since 2011 and haven’t won a postseason series since 2007, when one of their best players was Danny Brière, now the Flyers’ general manager.

    Let us raise a glass to the Tush Push. It’s dead, and the Eagles have to find an alternative.

    Steve Watson, a friend and former classmate of mine, has lived in the Buffalo region for most of his life. His son, Eli, is 12. Eli has never seen a Sabres playoff game.

    “It’s sad,” Watson, 50, who has been a reporter for the Buffalo News since 2001, said by phone Tuesday. “When the Sabres are good, and they have been good for a lot of their history, you see the little flags people put on their cars. We embrace the team, but they’re losing this current fan generation. They took a great hockey town and tarnished it.”

    The situation with the Bills has, if possible, been even more painful, for all their near misses. Even a casual football fan is familiar with the Bills’ four consecutive Super Bowl losses from 1991 to 1994 and all the tragic heroes from that period — Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Frank Reich — and the comeback from 35-3 against the Houston Oilers, Scott Norwood and wide right against the New York Giants. But the aftermath has been just as rough.

    A Bills fan sits among snow-covered seats before the start a wild-card playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan. 15, 2024.

    The Bills went 17 years, from 2000 through 2016, without making the playoffs. Now they have Josh Allen, who was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player last season, who is regarded as the second- or third-best quarterback in the league at worst, and who has led the Bills to the postseason for seven straight seasons … and to no Super Bowls. Either Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow has been in their way, or they’ve had a bad day at the worst time and squandered home-field advantage, or they’ve stood under a ladder staring at a broken mirror while a clowder of black cats strutted past them. They’re 11-4 this season, and Allen has again been outstanding, but now their intradivisional nemeses, the New England Patriots, are back atop the AFC East after a few years of mediocrity. The cycle seems without end.

    This excruciating history wouldn’t generate much sympathy from anyone, let alone from Philly’s famously competitive and insecure sports fans (“Oh, you think you’ve had it rough? Lemme tell ya about the night Joe Carter …”), if we were talking about an area of the country whose lifers didn’t care so much. But that ain’t Buffalo. The people there bleed for their teams just like everyone down here does. After all, sports is their only salvation from spending three-quarters of the year with snowshoes strapped to their feet.

    Here’s how the Eagles have reigned in the NFC East

    “It’s up there with chicken wings,” Watson said. “It’s up there with our lovely weather. It’s our identity. We are blue collar. We are the city of good neighbors. And we’re a big sports town. I used to write more obituaries for the News, and it was always painful for me to write, ‘Lifelong Bills fan … Lifelong Sabres fan.’ They never got that payoff for their years of suffering.”

    Look, if you’re an Eagles fan, you don’t have to root for the Bills — certainly not on Sunday, certainly not if the two teams end up facing each other at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8. In many regards, though, you and those fans near Niagara Falls were kindred spirits for years. So if and when the Eagles do bow out of the playoffs, and if Buffalo’s hopes for a Super Bowl victory are still alive, send some good thoughts toward western New York. They’re still waiting for their moment in the warm sun up there, and Lord knows they’ve already suffered enough.

  • Handing out credit for the Eagles’ record playoff run, also what NFL refs got right and DK Metcalf did wrong in Week 16

    Handing out credit for the Eagles’ record playoff run, also what NFL refs got right and DK Metcalf did wrong in Week 16

    Eagles GM Howie Roseman and owner Jeffrey Lurie make the big decisions, and most of their decisions in the past five years turned out to be sound. But they didn’t take a single snap, run a meeting, or call a play during the Eagles’ five consecutive playoff runs, culminating Saturday in the first back-to-back NFC East championships since Andy Reid’s Eagles did it four times from 2001-04.

    Eagles use big second half to overwhelm Commanders, become first repeat NFC East champs since 2004

    Five straight postseason runs ties those Reid-era Eagles for most consecutive playoff appearances. It also is the longest active streak, technically, but Buffalo (six straight from 2019-24) and Tampa Bay (five straight) both have a chance to extend theirs. Kansas City’s 10-year run, which is second only to the Patriots’ 11-year run, just ended; the Eagles’ win in KC on Sept. 14 helped to exclude Reid and his Chiefs.

    In all cases, consistent excellence and dedication have pushed a wealth of talent to accomplish what is every NFL team’s goal at the start of every season. These are the front line people who were a part of it in Philly for all of the last five years:

    Nick Sirianni, whose coaching ability far outstripped anyone’s expectations. On Saturday, he tied George Seifert as the coach with the most regular-season and playoff wins in his first five seasons as a head coach in the Super Bowl era, but Sirianni’s 64 wins are much more impressive than Seifert’s. Seifert inherited a Super Bowl team with legends all over the 49ers roster. Sirianni inherited Jalen Reagor.

    Jalen Hurts, whose quarterbacking ability far outstripped anyone’s expectations. His 61 wins, including playoffs, rank third behind the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen.

    Lane Johnson, right tackle, who might be the best Eagle ever.

    DeVonta Smith, wide receiver, who already is the Eagles’ all-time leader in playoff receiving yards with 595.

    Landon Dickerson, left guard, part of the best left side in Eagles offensive line history.

    Jordan Mailata, left tackle, the other part of the best left side in Eagles offensive line history.

    Brandon Graham, defensive lineman, who was drafted in 2010, retired after 2024, unretired in mid-2025, changed positions from end to tackle two weeks ago, and has three sacks since.

    Jake Elliott, who has missed five of his last 11 kicks, but who set a Super Bowl record in February with 16 points when he made four field goals in New Orleans.

    Dallas Goedert, tight end, whose 52 postseason catches are a franchise record.

    Jeff Stoutland, the offensive line coach and the best assistant in the history of Philadelphia.

    Michael Clay, special teams coordinator, who entered the NFL coaching ranks in 2014 thanks to former Eagles coach Chip Kelly, who should be credited for a lot of changes in Eagles culture.

    Kevin Patullo, first-year offensive coordinator, former passing game coordinator, and Sirianni’s longtime majordomo. Currently, he is unpopular.

    Jemal Singleton, running backs coach and current assistant head coach who has overseen the best seasons of Saquon Barkley, D’Andre Swift, and Miles Sanders.

    Jason Michael, the tight ends coach who made Goedert a top-five tight end and helped sixth-rounder Grant Calcaterra last for four years in the NFL.

    Aaron Moorehead, the receivers coach tasked with keeping A.J. Brown in line.

    Jeremiah Washburn, who has coached edge rushers including Nolan Smith, Jalyx Hunt, Jaelan Phillips, and Josh Sweat. Also Bryce Huff and Joshua Uche.

    “Big” Dom DiSandro, security chief, Howie’s adviser, game-day and sideline sheriff, whose basic job it is to keep everybody safe and out of trouble.

    Honorable mention: Lurie and Roseman delegate liberally, and their scouts and support staff are remarkably loyal and proficient.

    DK Metcalf’s swing at fan costs Steelers

    Late in the second quarter of their game in Detroit, Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf approached a blue-wigged Lions fan in the stands and exchanged words. He then grabbed the fan’s shirt, pulled the fan down closer to him, then appeared to try and strike the fan as he released the fan’s shirt and walked away. Metcalf, through reported sources, claimed the fan, with whom he interacted during last year’s game, used a racial slur and also insulted Metcalf’s mother.

    Metcalf remained in the game — officials afterward said they didn’t see it happen. The league apparently did not believe Metcalf’s explanation of provocation or didn’t believe it warranted his action.

    He was suspended (as always, without pay, in this case $555,556) for the Steelers’ last two games, which could be devastating. The Steelers, 9-6 and atop the AFC North, face the Browns, then the 7-8 Ravens to finish the year. Metcalf plans to appeal the decision.

    Refs got it right

    Social media, Rams fans, and Lions fans nearly shared a group embolism after several unusual plays with intricate rules applications affected the outcomes of games with significant playoff implications — plays on which officials ultimately landed on the correct calls, with no room for argument.

    On Thursday night, the Seahawks were granted a two-point conversion that tied their game with the Rams, 30-30, on a bizarre sequence:

    Sam Darnold threw a backward pass to Zach Charbonnet, which deflected off Rams linebacker Jared Verse’s hand, then his helmet. The second deflection sent the ball forward, just over the goal line. As Charbonnet dejectedly retrieved the ball, a whistle blew.

    Officials gathered to discuss the play and they ruled that, even though the whistle blew, the ball remained live. Further, since there is a distinction between a backward pass and a fumble — the offense cannot advance a fumble on a two-point conversion — Charbonnet’s recovery was valid.

    Not only did the refs get this right, TV rules analyst Terry McAulay immediately explained why officials were discussing the play and he accurately predicted a reversal. Minutes later, the Football Zebras account took to Twitter/X and explained the intricacies of the determination.

    If you’re interested, early Friday morning McAulay used his own entertaining Twitter/X account to further explain and defend his comments and opinion, including a quote-tweet of one of his posts from 2023, which explains the rules and emphasizes the confusion regarding the whistle. This includes a reply to an esteemed, retired Inquirer writer who covered the Eagles.

    You might not agree with the rules enforced here, but they have existed for a long time, and they were appropriately applied. That said, I understand the outrage. I’ve been covering the NFL for 35 years and I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure what I was watching. I am sure, however, that, between the nuances of the backward pass and the whistle, I would have gotten at least part of it wrong.

    The refs, in the end, did not.

    Notably, this all happened with more than six minutes to play in regulation. Each team had three more possessions before overtime, so the conversion didn’t directly determine the winner. Each team scored a touchdown in overtime, and after the Seahawks scored the answering TD they were successful with a bold, if benign, two-point conversion. The win put them at 12-3, gave them the current top seed in the NFC, and the lead in the NFC West over the 11-4 Rams.

    On Sunday evening, another bizarre play did determine the winner of the Steelers-Lions game, with possibly even greater playoff consequences that included a third team.

    The Lions drove to the Steelers’ 1-yard line with 25 seconds to play, trailing by five points. They scored a touchdown on the next play, but it was nullified by offensive pass interference on Jameson Williams, called for an illegal pick on a Steelers defender. Good call.

    Two plays later, the final play of the game, Jared Goff hit Amon-Ra St. Brown near the goal line. St. Brown was stopped but not declared down; instead, he lateraled to Goff, who vaulted into the end zone for a touchdown after time expired.

    Unfortunately, Goff had vaulted past two flags on the ground. Brown had clearly pushed his defender away to get open.

    A lengthy discussion determined that St. Brown had indeed committed offensive pass interference before the catch. The penalty nullified the touchdown. Since time had expired, the game was over.

    The fallout: The Steelers clinched a playoff spot for the 49ers and essentially ended the Lions’ season, since, due to tiebreaker rules, the 8-7 Lions now cannot catch the 10-4 49ers in the wild-card race. The Steelers, now 9-6, also greatly improved their own postseason hopes with a crazy 29-24 win in Detroit, where they were seven-point underdogs.

    Anyway, kudos, refs.

    Then, on Sunday Night Football, as if to spite their few supporters, officials failed to call a blatant pass interference penalty against the Ravens late in the Patriots’ comeback win at Baltimore, probably the worst missed call of the year. The Pats still scored on that drive and won the game, but come on, fellas.

    Extra points

    The Bears’ comeback win over the Packers on Saturday night virtually locked the Eagles into the No. 3 seed behind the Seahawks (12-3) and the Bears (11-4). … The Chiefs could be moving from Missouri to Kansas to secure a new stadium, with an announcement coming as soon as Monday afternoon. … The Patriots’ win not only locked in their first playoff berth since 2021, it gave them a 12-3 record, same as the Broncos, who lost in Jacksonville (11-4), though the Patriots lose the top-seed tiebreaker against the Broncos (common opponents). … The Jags have won six in a row.

  • Let us raise a glass to the Tush Push. It’s dead, and the Eagles have to find an alternative.

    Let us raise a glass to the Tush Push. It’s dead, and the Eagles have to find an alternative.

    We are football followers, Eagles followers, so … no lies between us.

    The Tush Push had its moments. Yes, it did. You remember the first touchdown of Super Bowl LIX, the ease with which Jalen Hurts slipped through the Kansas City Chiefs’ defensive line and into the end zone? The Tush Push was the first sign of the rout to come. And the fourth-and-1 from the Eagles’ 26-yard line against the Miami Dolphins two years ago? In a one-score game? That was the Tush Push at its best. And the NFC championship game in January. The two Hurts TDs from the Washington 1-yard line. The Frankie Luvu leaps. The high comedy.

    The Tush Push took a lot of close games and put them away. Yes, indeed. It won more games for the Eagles than it lost, as much as any strategy or ploy. Did it tick off an NFL coach or three? No doubt. I think the league actually kind of got used to it, thank God. Did it cause controversy and enrage owners and get people in the media saying silly things about “nonfootball plays?” Hell, yes. Was it as much a fad, a passing fancy, as the run-and-shoot and the Wildcat and an RPO-based offense? Abso-freaking-lutely. But the Tush Push stood against that dark tide, and it helped make the Eagles of Philadelphia a great team. A championship team.

    ♦ ♦ ♦

    LANDOVER, Md. — Here at Northwest Stadium, just 35 miles from the city that was the setting for David Simon’s magisterial series The Wire, it is only fitting that, as if attending a barstool wake among Baltimore po-leece, we eulogize the Tush Push. The play that once gave the Eagles a physical, psychological, and strategic edge over every opponent they encountered is, by all available indications, dead.

    Three times during their 29-18 victory Saturday over the Commanders, the Eagles tried to run their unique and once-unstoppable version of the quarterback sneak. Three times, it failed. Once, tackle Fred Johnson committed a false-start penalty. Once, Hurts gained no yardage. Once, guard Landon Dickerson committed another false-start infraction. And with his offense facing a (relatively long) fourth-and-1 on its first possession, coach Nick Sirianni had the Eagles punt from their own 41 instead of attempting the play.

    Grading the Eagles’ win over the Washington Commanders

    This was the flat line across the electrocardiogram screen. In 2023, the Eagles led the NFL in fourth-down conversion percentage, at 67.9%. Last season, they were third, but their efficiency rate (71%) was higher. This season, they entered Saturday at 61.1%, seventh-best in the league — good, but not dominant, not close.

    “Teams adjust; we’ve got to continue to adjust,” Sirianni said. “Credit to them. They did a really good job of stopping us there. … We have to get this play working the way it’s been in the past, which we’ll work our butts off to do. But we were really able to overcome.”

    They were. They got Hurts’ 15-yard touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert late in the third quarter — a nifty bit of improvisation after Dickerson’s penalty and a holding call against Johnson had pushed them back from the Commanders’ 1. They got Saquon Barkley gaining 132 yards and running like all the members of Washington’s defense had insulted his mother. And they got the benefit of playing a bad team that started its backup quarterback (Marcus Mariota) and had to turn to its third-stringer (Josh Johnson).

    Bad coaching, worse kicking, and a two-point controversy mar an Eagles win. Are we that spoiled? | Marcus Hayes

    But the demise of the Tush Push is real, and it has to be a worry as the Eagles look ahead to the postseason. Hurts has made it clear that he had grown tired of running it anyway, and the league officials had raised their level of scrutiny of it, calling more penalties against the Eagles this season. It has gone from an automatic first down to an unreliable chore. They will have to find a new way to remain aggressive, and to succeed, in fourth-and-short situations.

    “The play might not even be around next year, to be honest, the way they’re officiating it,” tackle Jordan Mailata said. “Last week, it was that our shoulders have to be parallel to the line of scrimmage. They can’t be angled in. Great. They’re officiating us a little harder. If this is the last year that we can run it, we’ll just run it till we can’t run it anymore.

    “The history that we have with that, we’re pretty successful, so when we lean on that play, you expect us to convert. One-yard line — we just didn’t do it. I was pretty happy that Dallas and Jalen could bail us out on that one, but sometimes, that’s just how it goes. Teams this year have done a great job of stopping that play, so we’ve got to do a better job of executing it and go from there.”

    Understand: The Eagles brought these challenges upon themselves, in the best way possible. They pioneered the Tush Push, then perfected it, then used it so frequently in the course of winning a Super Bowl that they inspired a campaign against it. Teams are better prepared for it now, and the officials are eyeballing the Eagles every time they line up to run it. And yet, like mourners over a casket, they spoke Saturday as if they haven’t reconciled themselves to the hard, heartbreaking truth. “It’s in a good place,” Hurts said, and center Cam Jurgens insisted, “It’s still our bread and butter. It might get a little dry at times, but bread and butter is bread and butter.” But these words seemed the bittersweet valediction for a play that will send an opposing defense to its knees no more.

    The Tush Push worked, and now its prime has passed. Raise your glass. It was called. It served. It is counted.

  • A two-point controversy, poor coaching, and worse kicking mar an Eagles win. Are we that spoiled?

    A two-point controversy, poor coaching, and worse kicking mar an Eagles win. Are we that spoiled?

    LANDOVER, Md. — It seems ungrateful to complain about any win, particularly a win that ensures a fifth consecutive trip to the playoffs, and the team in question won the latest Super Bowl.

    It seems doubly thankless to whine about the coach and staff that largely have been responsible for this windfall of January football, delivered with an NFC East title earned Saturday with a 29-18 win over the Commanders.

    So yes, it seems ungrateful, and even thankless, to wish for better.

    But we are Philadelphia, aren’t we?

    “We’ve raised the expectations of what to expect,” Nick Sirianni said.

    He gets it.

    Sirianni shepherded his Eagles into Northwest Stadium to face a 4-10 Commanders team that played without its starting quarterback for the first two-thirds of the game, then played without its backup the rest of the way.

    Sirianni’s offensive line was overwhelmed for the first three quarters. His quarterback, Jalen Hurts, was confused most of the evening, typical of Hurts’ meetings with Commanders coach Dan Quinn, the former defensive coordinator for Dallas.

    Eagles running back Saquon Barkley runs past Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner for a fourth-quarter touchdown.

    Sirianni’s curious decision to try a two-point conversion instead of kicking a PAT with a 27-10 lead with 4 minutes, 46 seconds to play was the cherry on top. Sirianni said it was simple math, but his postgame handshake with Quinn was very brief. So they got the 19-point lead, but at what cost? A scrum broke out as the scoreboard turned to 29-10. The scrum immediately followed the successful conversion, and it led to the ejection of two Commanders and one Eagle, right guard Tyler Steen. All could face suspensions.

    The scrum was precipitated, at least in part, by what some Commanders perceived as Sirianni running up the score against a hapless team using its third-string quarterback. Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner certainly seemed to be expressing those sentiments to Hurts as the fighting subsided.

    Asked afterward what he thought of the two-point try, Wagner replied tersely, “I didn’t understand it.”

    Was it a diss?

    “Was it disrespectful? Maybe,” Wagner said. “We’ve got to stop them. We’ll see them in a couple of weeks.”

    Quinn was less gracious.

    “Hey, man, that’s how they want to get down? All good,” he said. “We play them again in two weeks.”

    So yes, the hosts were not happy with Sirianni, and that animosity will linger when the Commanders visit Philadelphia for the season finale in two weeks.

    The fight (loosely defined; there was no damage done) was the oddest incident of the Saturday, 5 p.m. start, which was itself an oddity. Maybe the unconventionality of the game produced the overarching atmosphere of weirdness.

    There was more strangeness in a first half that ended with the Eagles in a 10-7 hole.

    Jake Elliott missed field goal tries of 43, 57, and 52 yards, all wide left, the last two almost consecutively. (The 57-yarder was wiped by an offsides penalty and didn’t officially count as a miss, but still mattered.)

    Hurts missed A.J. Brown with an easy third-down pass.

    Let’s stop acting like the Eagles haven’t had a great season

    Will Shipley fumbled the opening kickoff, which gifted the Commanders three points. He then brought another out of the end zone; kneeling would have given them the ball at the 35, but it wound up costing the Eagles 16 yards.

    Near the end of the half the Eagles had to call a timeout … coming out of a timeout.

    This is not the stuff of champions.

    Well, maybe NFC East champions, but the NFC East stinks this season, and besides, the NFC East championship is not the goal, is it? Super Bowl LX is the goal, and it seemed unrealistic after Saturday.

    There were just too many glaring mistakes and omissions.

    Cornerback Cooper DeJean celebrates his interception in the third quarter against the Commanders.

    Chief among them: Tight end Dallas Goedert, who had 14 catches for 148 yards two touchdowns the previous two weeks, was not even targeted until the second half.

    When the Eagles finally deigned to include the best postseason pass-catcher in their history, it worked out. He caught passes of 8 yards, then 9 yards, drew a penalty on third-and-8 (unaccepted due to a more penal, simultaneous penalty), and then, on third-and-goal from the 15 thanks to offensive line penalties, caught a 15-yard TD pass that gave the Eagles a 14-10 lead.

    The TD pass gave Goedert 10 this season after catching a total of eight the previous three seasons combined.

    This is the guy who hadn’t been targeted.

    Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota left the game with a hand injury after the first series of the second half, which left the Commanders with Josh Johnson and no backup. They might better have gone with the no backup.

    Johnson threw an interception on his first series, a floater across the field to Cooper DeJean at the Commanders’ 37-yard line. The Birds turned it into a touchdown, but it took them seven plays, the last two of which were Saquon Barkley runs of 8 and 12 yards — tough, punishing, bell-cow runs behind a line that finally asserted itself properly.

    Barkley finished with 132 yards on 21 runs, his second-best game of the season, and left him at 1,072 for the year, the fifth 1,000-yard season of his eight-year career.

    Tank Bigsby added a late TD, which led to the two-point scrum, which minimized the late Commanders’ TD, with 1:10 to play.

    Brandon Graham set the Eagles’ shutout tone

    But how to consider the win?

    Glass half full: A good win — on the road, against a division opponent, with no offensive turnovers, but with a defensive turnover. Also, a win having lost linebacker Nakobe Dean, who left early with a hamstring injury. Also, a win with right tackle Lane Johnson and defensive tackle Jalen Carter likely to return for next Sunday’s game at Buffalo.

    Glass half empty: Another ugly win — against a poor team, a win despite a skittish $5 million kicker who has missed five of his last 11 kicks; a win in which Hurts continued an inconsistent season; a win in which the coaching staff seemed unprepared with a game plan that seemed uninspired.

    A win is a win is a win, but, really, is it too much to expect a greater degree of consistency and professionalism from the reigning Super Bowl champions?

    Is it ungrateful to believe a 10-5 team should look more like a 10-win team than five-loss team?

    Maybe.

    But, hey, we are Philadelphia.

  • Three happy thoughts about the Eagles, for a change

    Three happy thoughts about the Eagles, for a change

    Ho, ho, ho.

    ‘Twas the weekend before Christmas and all through the house I couldn’t find anything about which to grouse.

    The Cowboys have Cowboyed, the Commies are done, the Eagles will again be the NFC East’s No. 1.

    And not only that but they’ll be better than the Bucs, which means they won’t play the Rams, which really would have sucked.

    Why you’d count out the Eagles is really beyond me, and that goes double for the grinches shouting Nick Sirianni.

    I like the Eagles’ chances, and you can call me a fool, though I’ll call you a Scrooge if you say, “Bah, humbug … Patullo.”

    Three reasons to cheer up about the Eagles as they look to clinch the division against the Commanders on Saturday.

    Nick Sirianni’s Eagles get the Commanders twice over their final three games to try to boost their playoff standing.

    1. The Eagles can easily end up with the No. 2 seed and host the NFC Championship game.

    I’m not going to try to put into words all of the various scenarios that could play out over the final three weeks of the regular season. But there are two important points.

    1. The Rams and Seahawks could be headed for a rubber match in their season series, which they’ve split in two of the more entertaining games of the season. One of those teams will likely enter the postseason as the fifth seed, and the other the one seed, which would put them in position to face each other in the divisional round, given that the second-best team in the NFC West (Rams or Seahawks) looks a lot better than the best team in the NFC South (Bucs or Panthers), whom they’d face in the wild-card round.
    2. The Bears (10-4) close out the season against three potential playoff teams, with home games against the Packers and Lions sandwiched around a road game in San Francisco. They’ve already lost to the Packers and Lions. In a scenario where the Bears lose two or three of those games, the Eagles could finish ahead of them by winning out, or even by winning two of three.

    In other words, the Eagles could easily end up hosting the Bears in the wild-card round and then playing someone other than the Seahawks or Rams in the divisional round. They would then host the NFC Championship if the lower-seeded team (Rams at the moment) knocked off the higher-seeded team (Seahawks).

    The moral of the story is that the NFC is wide open. Sure, the road is likely to be tougher than it was a year ago, when the Commanders somehow advanced to the NFC Championship. The 49ers have won four straight games since Brock Purdy’s return at quarterback, with an average margin of victory of 16.25 points. Their only losses on the season have come against the 10-4 Jaguars, the 11-4 Rams, the 9-5 Texans, and a Bucs team that was 5-1 at the time. The Lions aren’t dead yet. If they beat the Steelers at home this week, they could easily be playing the Bears in Week 18 with a playoff berth on the line. Rams, Lions, 49ers would be a heck of a collection of wild-card teams.

    But none of these teams are great, are they? The Eagles would be no worse than a coin flip in any potential playoff matchup, home or road. Even as the three seed, the Eagles would have a realistic chance at hosting an NFC Championship game.

    Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter will miss his third straight game on Saturday following shoulder surgery.

    2. Lane Johnson and Jalen Carter could be back on the offensive and defensive lines for the second or third-seeded Eagles.

    Anytime Johnson misses a snap we hear about how important he is. The Eagles have lost six of their last nine meaningful games that they’ve played without their All-Pro right tackle, including three this season. But I don’t often hear Johnson’s absence when it comes time to dole out blame for the offense’s underperformance this season. That’s partially because they’ve struggled with him in the lineup. But they were also 8-2 with a bunch of big wins.

    Jeff McLane’s keys to Eagles vs. Commanders in Week 16: What you need to know and a prediction

    Carter’s impact is nearly as big on the defensive line. Over the last three seasons, the Eagles have lost five of the seven meaningful games that Carter has missed. One of the two wins was the season opener against the Cowboys, which easily could have been a loss. Carter clearly wasn’t himself in the Eagles’ loss to the Bears. A healthy return for the postseason alongside Johnson could be massive.

    3. The Eagles could be better than we’re giving them credit for.

    Rarely is it as easy as it was for the Eagles last season.

    That’s something that has been underemphasized by your faithful servants in the chattering classes as we’ve performed our living autopsies on the 2025 season. While the Eagles have offered plenty to critique, a big part of their problem is perception. They set a standard that would have been tough for any team to match, let alone a team that is where they are in their talent cycle. Only five other times in the last 10 seasons had a team score at least 463 points while allowing 303 or fewer. Only once in the Super Bowl Era has a team done it in back-to-back seasons (the 1993-94 49ers). Heck, only five teams have done it multiple times in that 59-year span.

    A big part of it is economics. Jalen Hurts’ cap hit jumped from $13.6 million in 2024 to $21.9 million in 2025. DeVonta Smith’s went from $7.5 million to $10.7 million. Jordan Mailata’s went from $11.7 million to $15.2 million. Combined, that’s an increase of about $15 million going to three players. That means the Eagles have $15 million fewer dollars worth of players elsewhere on the roster compared to 2024. In 2024, they spent roughly $15.4 million on the combined cap hits of Darius Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and Mekhi Becton. Economics is known as the dismal science for good reason.

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    But money isn’t the only element of the story. The NFL carefully structures itself to avoid prolonged runs by teams that were as dominant as the Eagles were last season. Parity is the goal of the draft, and of the scheduling process, and, yes, of the salary cap.

    Over the last 10 seasons, the most games any team has won in a 65-game stretch is 53, which the Chiefs did between 2019-23. As of today, the Eagles have won 48 of their last 65, dating back to the start of the 2022 season. They are one of only five teams to accomplish that over the last decade.

    Point is, the Eagles’ roller-coaster ride of the last four years is unique only because of the highs. No, they aren’t the steamroller they were last season. But you don’t need to be a steamroller to win a Super Bowl. Right now, the Eagles have as much reason as any team in the NFC to consider themselves the team to beat.