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  • Rams loss eliminates one Eagles wild-card opponent as playoffs approach

    Rams loss eliminates one Eagles wild-card opponent as playoffs approach

    The Eagles will host a playoff game at Lincoln Financial Field during the first round of the NFL playoffs, and got a clearer sense of who their opponent will be Monday night.

    The Los Angeles Rams (11-5) lost to the Atlanta Falcons (7-9) Monday night, a surprising outcome that could have a big impact on the NFC playoff picture, not to mention which team the Birds (11-5) will face in their wild-card game.

    Eagles news: Updated playoff picture; Nick Sirianni taunts Bills fans; injury report

    Here’s everything on the line and how it could impact the Eagles:

    NFC playoff picture

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    NFC West playoff scenarios

    The math is pretty easy here. The winner of Week 18’s matchup between the San Francisco 49ers (12-4) and the Seattle Seahawks (13-3) will end up deciding the NFC West champion and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

    The Rams had an outside chance at claiming the division, but they were officially eliminated from contention by the 49ers’ win Sunday night. Now the best Los Angeles can do is the No. 5 seed.

    Who will the Eagles play in the wild-card round?

    Which team the Eagles face in the first round of the playoffs will ultimately be decided by what happens in Week 18. The Rams loss Monday night eliminates the possibility the Eagles will face the Seahawks first in the postseason.

    It also makes it most likely the Eagles will face the Rams in the wild-card round.

    Here is a breakdown of the Eagles’ potential wild-card opponents, excluding ties:

    • No. 2 Eagles vs. No. 7 Packers: Eagles win vs. Commanders AND Bears loss to the Detroit Lions (8-8)
    • No. 3 Eagles vs. No. 6 Rams: Eagles loss or Bears win
    • No. 3 Eagles vs. No. 6 49ers: Rams win vs. Cardinals AND Seahawks win vs. 49ers

    The Falcons can ruin the NFC South’s win-and-you’re-in game

    With both teams losing Sunday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-9) and Carolina Panthers (8-8) will face off in a Week 18 win-and-you’re-in game for the NFC South title.

    The winner will claim the division crown and the NFC’s No. 4 seed, which means it will host a game against the No. 5 seed.

    Unless the Falcons and Buccaneers win in Week 18, which would force a three-way tie at 8-9 atop the NFC South.

    In that unlikely case, the first tiebreaker would be head-to-head among the three teams, which the Panthers would win.

    Two AFC divisions will be decided in Week 18

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    • AFC North: The Pittsburgh Steelers (9-7) and Baltimore Ravens (8-8) will meet with a playoff berth on the line. The winner becomes the AFC’s No. 4 seed and claims the conference’s final postseason spot, while the loser watches the playoffs from the couch.
    • AFC South: The Jacksonville Jaguars (12-4) will claim their first division crown since 2022 with a win against the Tennessee Titans (3-13) or a Houston Texans (11-5) loss to the Indianapolis Colts (8-8). The Texans need a win and a Jaguars loss to win the AFC South.
  • The doctor is always in | Expert Opinion

    The doctor is always in | Expert Opinion

    It’s reassuring to have a doctor around when an unexpected medical emergency occurs.

    “Is there a doctor in the house?” is the infamous call when someone has chest pain on an aircraft, falls in the grocery store, faints in the theater, or experiences any sudden physical ailment or mishap. Recently, a physician colleague shared a story that illustrated the value of a foundational doctoring skill — empathetic communication — even in a situation that wouldn’t ordinarily call for a doctor’s expertise.

    My colleague was in a crowded pharmacy, and a number of customers were growing irritated by the slow progress at the photo station. A part required replacement, which slowed the processing of print orders. When one customer approached the store manager to air his frustration, the manager appeared to ignore him. Then the manager abruptly turned to the customer and shouted, “You can leave my store!”

    By now, lines were also getting longer at another checkout area, since the manager was too preoccupied with the photo problem to address the cashier’s issue. When he finally made it over, a customer expressed his frustration that so few checkout lanes were open.

    “You can leave my store!” the manager responded.

    My friend is a seasoned medical specialist who had been in line for a half hour himself. He observed the commotion and the manager’s dismissive retorts.

    He decided to approach the manager, but with a different opener. “You seem to be having a really awful day.”

    The manager looked up in surprise and replied, “You’re right. It’s been a horrendous day.”

    “You know,” my friend whispered with a half smile, “if you keep telling everyone to leave your store, that might not be so great for business.”

    They both chuckled a bit, and the tension in the room eased. The manager continued moving from task to task without much enthusiasm but my friend did not hear him invite anyone else to “leave my store.”

    Compassionate communication is not unique to medicine, but it is the skill that I consider most essential to ensuring that patients leave feeling relieved and reassured after a doctor’s visit.

    In the pharmacy, my friend never identified himself as a doctor, nor was he recognized as one. He didn’t need to. At the time, doctoring was not on his mind.

    As I listened to his story, it was clear that his ability to notice someone’s distress and convey empathy is now so professionally innate as to be just part of the way he exists in the world.

    Like the store manager, many of us may have been helped by a doctor in a nonclinical setting without realizing it. It’s nice to know those interpersonal skills don’t shut down at the conclusion of office hours.

    Jeffrey Millstein is an internist and regional medical director for Penn Primary and Specialty Care.

  • A bank’s ‘racist and overzealous’ fraud investigator ruined a Pa. car dealership, lawsuit says

    A bank’s ‘racist and overzealous’ fraud investigator ruined a Pa. car dealership, lawsuit says

    Tianna Williams didn’t finish high school after becoming a mom at 16. As a teen dropout, she began flipping cars to make money, and by her late 20s, her car sales acumen led her to open a dealership in Lehigh Valley that grossed over $1 million in annual sales.

    An opportunity to get a line of credit with one of the nation’s largest banks turned Williams’ dream into a nightmare, she said, which led the 30-year-old to file a lawsuit.

    M&T Bank opened a fraud investigation into Williams in spring 2023, says the suit filed in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia in March. The bank inappropriately informed her financial partners that her business could be illegitimate, the complaint says. The bank froze her account, her partners cut ties, and her checks bounced. Williams’ growing businesses crashed.

    The investigation found no fraud, M&T lawyers said in a September hearing. But Williams says the damage was done.

    The complaint says the Black entrepreneur was a victim of the bank’s “racist and overzealous fraud investigator” who tormented the business owner for weeks. The investigator told Williams “you people” have ways of making fraudulent behavior seem legitimate, the suit says.

    Despite eventually finding no fraud, the investigator shared an email with a colleague, signed with a smiley-face emoji, saying “doing my best to not let her win on my watch.”

    “She killed my self-esteem,” Williams said of the investigator. “I lost all financial security.”

    The phenomenon of Black people being treated with suspicion by financial institutions has been dubbed “banking while Black” and has a history going back at least to the 1930s, when red lines on maps labeled majority-Black neighborhoods as unworthy of mortgages. More subtle variations of the practice have continued into the 21st century, resulting in settlement agreements for millions of dollars.

    Black customers have also reported tellers refusing to cash their checks, and banks calling police in disbelief that deposits made by Black people were legitimate. Studies further found that banks are more likely to scrutinize, and less likely to offer assistance to, Black small-business owners compared with their white counterparts.

    The Philadelphia area is not immune to the phenomenon. Black Philadelphians are less likely to have a bank account than their white neighbors, according to a report from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. And multiple banks entered settlements over offering worse interest rates and ratcheting up closing costs for Black mortgage seekers.

    ‘Somebody really has it out for you’

    Williams’ rags-to-riches story began in 2012, when she became pregnant at the age of 16. Her mother had recently been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and the family barely scraped by. After dropping out of high school before completing 10th grade, Williams learned how to flip cars from auctions with the help of a mentor she met through Facebook.

    Her first car: a 2002 Lincoln that as a 17-year-old she sold the next day for a $700 profit.

    The young hustler with a knack for sales got her auction license a couple of years later. She kept selling cars on Craigslist and through other social media connections. In 2018, she began working at an auto dealership. She learned the trade and became especially good at working with people who had low credit scores.

    Williams’ cut from each sale at the dealership was a fraction of the overall profit, so she decided to go it alone. She bought a lot in Easton in 2020 and set to work. The cars she sold became newer and more expensive.

    Tianna Williams next to the sign of her car dealership in Easton.

    To sell cars for more than a couple of thousand dollars, Williams needed to offer financing options. She got her banking license and contracted with lenders. Her business was booming and she was planning to open a second location.

    That’s when Shazard Mohammed from M&T reached out, the complaint says. He offered Williams a line of credit that would allow her to take her business to the next level, and she transferred her accounts to the bank.

    Within days, Williams’ lenders contacted her to say they could no longer offer her financing because she was being investigated by M&T for fraud. Nearly overnight, she was without a business while owing about $200,000 in business and tax debts.

    “M&T BANK basically told me that they suspected you of fraud,” one business partner told Williams in a text message, according to the complaint. “If that’s not true, then somebody really has it out for you.”

    Records fight

    The bank is now fighting in court to keep documents related to the investigation secret, despite an attorney representing M&T saying in a September hearing that “there was no finding of fraud,” according to a transcript.

    M&T said in that hearing that Williams was investigated because of “red flags,” such as misspellings on checks that were immediately withdrawn as cash, and that the investigation lasted only seven days.

    Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick sanctioned the bank’s lawyers in October for their failure to produce documents and ordered them to pay nearly $8,000 in attorneys’ fees. The judge also found that most records should not be sealed. M&T is appealing the ruling.

    Dean Malik, the attorney representing Williams, frames the case as a fight of David vs. Goliath. By issuing sanctions, he said, the judge reminded large entities that in court the playing field is leveled.

    “The judge is sending a message that it doesn’t matter if you are a billion-dollar bank and have two law firms representing you with five lawyers, you are still bound by the orders of the court,“ Malik said.

    Williams now cleans houses with her mother to support her family financially. She said her self-esteem has been shattered, and she hasn’t set foot inside a bank out of fear since her business closed in 2023.

    “There is nothing else I know how to do,” Williams said. “All I know is cars.”

  • Using a migrant’s shooting death to attack immigration itself

    Using a migrant’s shooting death to attack immigration itself

    In the days after the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, the Trump administration suspended the diversity visa “green card lottery,” saying the suspected shooter, a Portuguese national, had obtained permanent residency through it. It’s a convenient move that redirects attention from what happened to whom to blame.

    But one of the two students killed at Brown was a migrant, too.

    Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov was a Brown freshman, raised by a family that came to the United States from Uzbekistan to build a life here. Those who knew him described his kindness and generosity. Friends and family said he dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon, a goal shaped in part by the brain surgery he needed as a child.

    Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, a college freshman and immigrant from Uzbekistan, was killed in the shooting at Brown University on Dec. 13.

    This young man represented what so many families come here hoping for: safety, education, a bright future. His death should have sparked a national reckoning with gun violence. Instead, the policy response once again targeted immigration, even as an immigrant family is among those grieving.

    Freezing the diversity visa lottery doesn’t touch the core problem of mass shootings at schools across the country. It doesn’t answer the question that matters most in the wake of any campus shooting: How is it so easy to get a gun, let alone bring it into a place built for learning?

    The administration’s response hinges on a simple narrative in which the suspected shooter’s immigration history becomes the headline, and the first policy move becomes a freeze on a visa program that has nothing to do with how a gun was obtained or used.

    Even the publicly reported timeline is more complicated than that talking point suggests. What’s clear is that the suspension of this visa program diverts attention from gun access and campus safety.

    Immigrants from around the world take the U.S. citizenship oath at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2024.

    The diversity visa lottery is one of the few legal routes for people from underrepresented countries to come to the United States. This year alone, more than 5,500 people from Uzbekistan were selected in the lottery. For many families, it represents the only legal path forward. The administration has closed the door on that pathway.

    So when the administration suspends the program in the name of “safety,” it does more than change a policy. It tells grieving immigrant families that their place here can shift with every news cycle.

    It also asks the public to draw the wrong lesson from what happened at Brown. If leaders want to prevent another campus shooting, they have to deal with the common denominator across these tragedies: easy access to guns and the absence of meaningful guardrails.

    Suspending a visa program does not keep a firearm out of an attacker’s hands. It does not make a classroom safer. It does not protect the next student walking into an engineering building on an ordinary day.

    Umurzokov should not be an afterthought in this debate. His family came here to build a future. He earned his place at Brown. He wanted a life spent helping others. Yet none of that kept him safe.

    If we are serious about honoring the lives of people like Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, we should resist the impulse to turn grief into scapegoating.

    In a nation built by immigrants and now mourning an immigrant student, leaders should be focused on preventing the next shooting, not using this tragedy to deepen fear while guns remain exactly where they are.

    Mehri Hamrokulova grew up between the U.S. and Uzbekistan, and recently graduated from Colgate University with a degree in sociology, focusing on immigrant experiences.

  • The Eagles wouldn’t be foolish to rest their starters in Week 18. But they’d better be right.

    The Eagles wouldn’t be foolish to rest their starters in Week 18. But they’d better be right.

    I really don’t know where to begin. Maybe with my Ron Burgundy voice.

    I don’t believe you.

    That means you, Nick Sirianni. And you, fellow media members. The big question from Sirianni’s news conference Monday isn’t a question at all. In fact, the Eagles coach is making an obvious error — albeit minor and forgivable — by playing along. There is simply no possible way he could be entertaining the idea of resting his starters in their regular-season finale against the Commanders in Week 18. Not with all the Eagles would stand to gain as the No. 2 seed, which would be theirs with a win over Washington and a Bears loss to the Lions.

    Why wouldn’t the Eagles go for the No. 2 seed? Nick Sirianni pointed to the Super Bowl for some insight.

    Right?

    Uh … right?

    “This is a marathon of a season,” Sirianni said Monday, one day after the Eagles eked out a 13-12 win over the Bills and then watched the Bears lose to the 49ers and thus fail to secure the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs. “Yes, your seeding is not locked down yet, but you are thinking, ‘Hey, can I put ourselves in the best position seeding-wise,’ while also you’re thinking to yourself how important byes are and creating them if you don’t earn the right for the first-round bye. Those are all things you’ve got to think through and go through.

    “I think a lot of guys would say last year that that was a big deal, being able to have a built-in bye last year to set us up for what we ultimately did last year.”

    C’mon, Nick! I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. You’re only doing that thing where you play the dummy on TV. We both know how good at this job you are. Few coaches in the NFL have as good of an understanding of what it takes to win in this league. Nobody has a better feel for his team, for his players, for his competitive reality. You know who the Eagles are and what they need and what situations will set them up for success.

    Nick Sirianni was unsurprisingly noncommittal when asked Monday if he intended to roll out his starters for the final regular-season game or rest them.

    Surely, you would agree with this long list of things that your team doesn’t need:

    • The Eagles don’t need a wild-card matchup against the Rams. Nor the 49ers. Nor the Seahawks. But especially not the Rams.
    • They don’t need a divisional round road game against a team they’ve already lost to in a stadium where the high temperature on Monday was 24 degrees with wind speeds well into the double digits.
    • They certainly don’t need any whiff of a quarterback controversy, which means they certainly don’t need to spend next week prepping for a playoff game while answering questions about Tanner McKee. And that means they don’t need their home crowd to watch McKee shred the hapless Commanders on Sunday, one week after Jalen Hurts failed to complete a pass in the second half of their narrow win over the Bills.

    The Eagles would eliminate all of these possibilities by securing the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs. So, why wouldn’t they try their darndest to do so? Why would Sirianni even think about keeping Hurts on the sidelines and sending McKee and the second-teamers out there on Sunday?

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

    I’m assuming the argument is as follows. The Eagles do not control their own destiny with regard to the second seed. If the Bears beat the Lions next week, Chicago gets the No. 2 seed, regardless of how the Eagles fare against the Commanders. The Lions don’t have anything to play for and the Bears just came up 3 yards short of beating a 49ers team that has a 50% chance to enter the playoffs as the NFC’s top overall seed. Chances are, the Bears beat the Lions (they are 2.5-point favorites). Thus, chances are, the Eagles are locked into the third seed and will be hosting one of the three NFC West powers instead of the sputtering Packers. In which case, the Eagles would gain far more by giving their starters an extra week to rest and prepare for the playoffs than they would by winning a meaningless game.

    OK, I’ll admit. It’s a compelling argument, especially when you consider how much the Eagles seemed to gain by resting their starters in Week 18 last season.

    An even more compelling argument is the one that Sirianni wouldn’t dare say out loud. I suspect it might be the real reason he is giving serious thought to resting his starters. The reason is Sirianni himself. And his coaches. If the Eagles punt on Week 18, it will allow the coaching staff and front office to spend an extra week preparing for the playoffs. It will give Hurts and the rest of the starters the ability to participate in that scouting and game-planning process. That’s a big, big deal.

    Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts did not complete any of his seven passes in the second half against the Bills.

    It doesn’t really matter that the Eagles don’t know who they will be playing. The extra week would allow them to prepare for everybody, and those preparations can pay dividends throughout the playoffs if and when they run into those teams. In short, rest for the players is more of a bonus. The real benefit of looking past the Commanders is the preparation.

    On the other hand … The benefits of the No. 2 seed are much more real this year than they are in a lot of years. The Packers are, by far, the easier matchup in the wild-card round. You’d much rather host them and then host a divisional round game and then potentially host an NFC championship game than any of the alternatives.

    As for the McKee thing … Sirianni will shrug it off. I can’t imagine it will be a consideration. But you are fooling yourself if you don’t look at it as a potential downside. If Hurts’ backup goes out there and looks like a world-beater on the eve of the playoffs, it will only ratchet up the pressure on the Eagles’ starter. To be clear, the people calling for McKee would be wildly off base. It’s a silly notion to think anybody but Hurts gives the Eagles the best chance to win a football game. But perceptions are what they are. And they can definitely bleed into a locker room.

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

    Long story short, Sirianni’s decision is much tougher than it looks at first glance. The extra week of internal preparation is incredibly valuable. The Eagles can still beat the Commanders with the backups playing, while allowing the starters to focus their practice weeks on the postseason.

    I just keep coming back to one thought. Imagine if everything breaks in a certain direction. The Bears lose. The Rams end up as the sixth seed. But the Eagles’ backups lose to the Commanders and their road to the Super Bowl ends up being home vs. the Rams, then on the road at the Bears, then on the road at the Seahawks or 49ers.

    All season, Sirianni preaches that the NFL is all about handling the opponent in front of you and then letting the other stuff sort itself out. Now, more than ever, he should listen to himself.

  • 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.

  • A star, not a side: The baked potato is back in a big way

    A star, not a side: The baked potato is back in a big way

    Slicing into creamy, tender, white flesh and browned, crispy skin, you might not immediately think of a baked potato as an indulgence. But as 2025 ends, this is where we are.

    Often thought of as pedestrian, baked potatoes have also proven themselves to be the perfect canvas for, well, anything. Baked potatoes — or jacket potatoes, if you want to be a bit British about it — are trending, relegated to a “side” no longer. The new baked potato is the star of the show.

    Clockwise from top left, Mod Spuds’ Bollywood spud, Malaysian spud, classic spud, and Philly cheesesteak spud.

    The baked potato has only gained trend status fairly recently. We started off the year in what I personally dubbed the era of the latke. Every seafood bar had a latke piled with tuna tartare, bearing dollops of cream and caviar. You can’t throw a rock (or a potato) in Philly without hitting some sort of fancy shellfish or tartare perched delicately upon a potato latke. The trend was relentless nationwide and inescapable here, from My Loup’s pastrami beef tartare served on latkes to Middle Child Clubhouse’s okonomiyaki latkes and Little Water’s peekytoe crab balanced on “hash browns” … also known as latkes.

    We have perhaps passed peak latke and moved onto another potato preparation. Baked-potato news has been populating my social media feeds, proffering both locally available spuds and unattainable ones.

    There’s chef Ange Branca’s Mod Spuds, which puts a Malaysian-Philadelphian spin on English jacket potatoes. She offers toppings well beyond the usual spoonful of sour cream and scattering of shredded cheese — from a Philly cheesesteak loaded potato to one topped with Branca’s legendary beef rendang.

    On TikTok, baked potatoes were buoyed by Nara Smith, who made a “jacket potato tutorial” for her 12.3 million followers. Her preparation of a baked potato, with narration in her husky, low voice while wearing couture, has spawned countless imitation videos. The U.K.-based business SpudBros has become a global brand with multiple locations, millions of followers, and food trucks thanks to viral success on TikTok.

    @naraazizasmith

    sleep deprivation is setting in🫠 #comfortfood #fypシ #plateup #mukbang #dinner

    ♬ original sound – Nara Smith

    Baked potatoes are also popping up on menus at restaurants and bars in ways one has never seen before, whether it’s Pietramala’s Japanese sweet potato with Buffalo sauce and cashew sour cream, or at the newly reopened Wine Dive (now on Sansom Street).

    Sweet Potato dish at Pietramala in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025.

    Wine Dive’s baked potato is an Idaho spud roughly the size of my Chihuahua, with crispy, deep brown skin and white flesh that emits plumes of steam when you slice into it through the mountain of sour cream, curls of cheddar, torn bits of bacon, and scallions.

    This is not a vehicle for masterful tikka masalas or rendang. This is a thoroughly American baked potato. On Wednesdays, Wine Dive has bottomless, all-you-can-eat baked potatoes for $15.

    It is as ridiculous as it sounds. Eat 10 baked potatoes and you get your photo on the wall and the promise of some very cool merch. No one has made it to 10. So far, the record has been seven potatoes.

    It’s possible that the proliferation of baked potatoes is, like cabbage, a recession indicator. But like the latke, it may very well have fine-dining legs. Just let me know if you manage to eat 10 in one go.

  • House of the week: A five-bedroom end-of-the-row house in East Falls for $652,000

    House of the week: A five-bedroom end-of-the-row house in East Falls for $652,000

    When Hope Coleman and Nathan Fong were looking for a larger East Falls rowhouse for themselves and their two young sons, they settled on a house that combined character and practicality. It had a garage, very rare for a rowhouse in that neighborhood.

    The couple — Coleman is a veterinarian and Fong a marketing professor at Rutgers University — moved into the house in 2019 but have now left for a larger house in Bala Cynwyd to accommodate aging parents on both sides.

    “The stuff that gave it character was original,” said Coleman, describing the East Falls house.

    The five-bedroom, 2½-bathroom home is 2,288 square feet.

    The heated, window-lined front porch provides entrance to the living room with original cathedral glass and stained-glass windows, high ceilings, and hardwood and Second Empire architectural style indicate it is considerably older. Documentation says the house was built in 1925, but Coleman believes that the mansard roof and architectural style indicate an earlier construction date.

    The living room features original cathedral glass and stained-glass windows.

    The dining room has a butler’s cabinet and a powder room with a pocket door.

    The renovated eat-in kitchen has solid oak cabinetry, granite countertops, a wide island with seating for four, and a beautifully restored Chambers stove complete with built-in warmer and broiler and griddle, vented to the exterior.

    The wide kitchen island can accommodate seating for four.

    Glass doors open from the kitchen to a private patio. A sunroom, added by the couple and connected to the kitchen, has underfloor heating, two skylights, and additional access to the backyard and side entrance, creating seamless indoor-outdoor flow.

    Glass doors open from the kitchen to a private patio.

    A back staircase leads directly from the kitchen to the second floor, which has three bedrooms, including a spacious front room that is used as a family room but can also serve as a large second-floor primary.

    The hall bath has a stained-glass window and a laundry room, which has built-ins, closet space, and the home’s original porcelain sink hutch.

    The third floor has two additional bedrooms and a newly added full bath. The rear bedroom could serve as a walk-in closet, office, private retreat, or a primary suite.

    The house is listed by Lisa Denberry of BHHS Fox & Roach Chestnut Hill for $652,000.

  • Sixers mailbag: Are the Sixers better on defense without Joel Embiid?

    Sixers mailbag: Are the Sixers better on defense without Joel Embiid?

    MEMPHIS — The 76ers‘ three-game losing streak is their longest since they dropped 12 straight last season from March 17 to April 7.

    How can they turn things around?

    “I think we just take a look at where we can get better and go from there,” Paul George said Sunday after a 129-104 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Paycom Center. “That’s really all we can do is just see where we can clean up our mistakes, whether it’s offensively or defensively.

    “We’ve got room for improvement for sure, and we’ve just got to address that.”

    The first opportunity to right the ship for the Sixers (16-14) will come Tuesday against the Memphis Grizzlies at FedEx Forum.

    Sixers takeaways: Third-quarter blues persist, costly turnovers and more in loss to the Thunder

    The Grizzlies (15-17) are coming off a loss to the struggling Washington Wizards on Sunday night. But before that, they had won 11 of 16 games.

    Will the Sixers snap their skid? Will they solve their third-quarter woes and costly turnovers?

    We’ll find out what they’ll do shortly. In the meantime, I’ll answer a few of your mailbag questions.

    Missed out on the party? No worries. Submit questions for next time by tweeting @PompeyOnSixers to X with the hashtag #PompeysMailbagFlow.

    Q: Do the Sixers play better defense when Joel Embiid doesn’t play and isn’t on the floor? — @Donny076

    A: Thanks for starting the mailbag, Donald. Based on Friday’s loss to the Chicago Bulls, it’s logical to assume that is the case. However, the numbers indicate that the Sixers defense is better when the 7-foot-2 center plays. They have an average defensive rating of 114.2 in the 13 games he has played in this season, according to StatMuse. The Sixers’ rating is 115.9 in the 17 games he has missed.

    But you are probably asking this question because the Sixers have lost three straight and seven of the last 10 games in which Embiid has played. They also began the season 3-0 with him in the lineup. However, without Embiid, the Sixers are 10-7.

    Rookie VJ Edgecombe knows he can score. He still defers to the Sixers’ Big Three.

    Let’s face it, Embiid hasn’t played up to the level that has garnered him three All-Defensive honors.

    Teams no longer fear his defensive presence because he cannot move laterally as quickly as he used to, is constantly out of position, and seldom jumps. As a result, opponents are running pick-and-rolls to get him involved in defensive actions and switching on to him.

    But, again, the defensive rating comparison says they’re still better with him.

    Sixers center Joel Embiid has scored at least 31 points twice over his last four games.
    Q: Is there any possibility that they can realistically trade Embiid? — @Paulmon30725760

    A: This is a great question that constantly comes up, Paul. We are all aware that the 31-year-old is making $55.2 million this season, and his three-year, $193 million extension begins next season. That’s a lot of money to take on for a player with an extensive injury history who has been a shell of his former self this season. He’s averaging career lows in points (21.8 per game), rebounds (6.5), field-goal percentage (.443), and three-point shooting percentage (.259).

    But on the positive side, Embiid has scored at least 31 points twice over his last four games. The 2023 MVP is averaging 26.7 points and 8.2 rebounds over that stretch. So he is showing offensive improvement.

    Why are the Sixers winless with their Big Three? A lack of rhythm.

    If Embiid can improve his defense and provide 80% of what he once did, his addition to most teams makes them instant championship contenders.

    But an NBA executive would have to be really secure in his job to make that trade, because a lot could go wrong.

    Sixers power forward Trendon Watford is expected to be a solid piece off the bench once he returns from an adductor strain in his thigh.
    Q: When was the last time you thought the Sixers had a good bench? — @Thamass8

    A: While it had a few holes, I felt as if the Sixers had a good bench two seasons ago before they shipped away Marcus Morris and Patrick Beverley right before the NBA trade deadline. That said, the Sixers also have a solid bench this season. The issue has been poor health.

    Think about how loaded the Sixers’ bench would be if Trendon Watford and Dominick Barlow or Kelly Oubre Jr. joined Quentin Grimes, Jared McCain, and Andre Drummond as the four players off the bench. The only reason I’m providing the option to choose between Oubre or Barlow is that I think either player would fit in the starting lineup alongside George, Embiid, VJ Edgecombe, and Tyrese Maxey. But Barlow, a power forward, has been inserted into the lineup while Oubre is sidelined with a sprained ligament in his left knee.

    Meanwhile, Watford, who plays well in a point forward role, has also been sidelined with an adductor strain in his left thigh. When they return, the Sixers will have plenty of options. This season’s bench is actually younger and more athletic than it was two seasons ago. It just has to get healthy.

  • ‘Sibling’ Liberty Bell will ring on Cherry Street Pier to celebrate New Year’s Eve

    ‘Sibling’ Liberty Bell will ring on Cherry Street Pier to celebrate New Year’s Eve

    A 2,000-pound “sibling” bell, typically displayed at the National Liberty Museum at Fourth and Chestnut, and produced by the same London-based foundry as the original, will be temporarily moved to the Cherry Street Pier as part of the city’s annual New Year’s on the Pier celebration Wednesday night.

    Getting it there, however, will be no easy task.

    “We’ve done a couple months of prep,” said Alaine K. Arnott, president and CEO of the National Liberty Museum, of the logistics of moving a one-ton piece of history for an outside event. “It’s the rental of a forklift, it’s getting a truck big enough to house it, it’s figuring out which route to take it through the City of Philadelphia.”

    The bell — which features a replica of the original bell’s famed crack, as well as the functionality its sibling lacks — will be on hand for a pair of ticketed New Year’s Eve events on the pier.

    The New Year’s Eve Kids Countdown — which includes music, crafts, and giveaways — runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the pier, with tickets on sale now for $27 per person. (Children 2 years old and younger are admitted free). Tickets for the pier’s 21-and-older event, which runs from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., are $32 and include a Champagne toast, cash bar, and optimal views of the fireworks.

    The festivities will be anchored by a pair of fireworks displays, part of Visit PA New Year’s Eve Fireworks on the Waterfront. The first display is set to begin at 6 p.m., and the other at midnight.

    (A third fireworks show will take place at midnight on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, part of a free concert by headliner LL Cool J, with additional performances by DJ Jazzy Jeff, Adam Blackstone, Dorothy, and Technician The DJ.)

    “I think it is a fantastic symbol and representative of our country,” Arnott said of the bell. “It inherently reminds people that liberty is something we’ve got to protect or it will vanish.”

    “It’s also really fun” she added, “when you actually get to ring it.”

    This year’s New Year’s Eve events mark the official launch of the city’s much-anticipated Semiquincentennial celebration honoring the nation’s 250th birthday — and if Arnott has her way, the sibling bell could feature prominently into the yearlong slate of events.

    “Once we do it [for New Year’s Eve], we’re really hoping to kick it off with MLB, with FIFA,” Arnott said of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game and the FIFA World Cup, both of which will be hosted next year in Philadelphia.

    “How cool would it be to do this for some of those events?”