Is it all a set up?

12/31 4:15 PM ET	Opening	BoDog	Sportsbook	Pinnacle	WSEX	5Dimes
Asslanta @ Philadelphia	45 -6.5	43 -8	43 -8	43 -8	43.5 -8	43 -9.5

Matchup

BONUS QUESTION: Who is the Eagles MVP - Garcia, Westbrook, or Dawkins?

Flyers Prove they are the Worst

In a battle between two of the leagues worst teams, the Flyers showed once again why they are in the midst of losing 10 straight. I missed the first period but saw the second and third. Flyers were sloppy, turned the puck over, were unable to clear their own zone, and lost those crucial one on one battles. Even the goal the Flyers scored was weak- a pass from Calder that banked in off Belfour. Particularly horrendous was Gagne, who fanned on at least three one timers, all of which the enabler, Jim Jackson, attributed to bad ice. The Flyers power play looked like butt, as they failed to convert on two 5 on 3 advantages. The power play plan is this give the puck to Forsberg and stand around and watch as he tries to pass. No one tries to get open or goes to the net, and Forsberg apparently has forgotten how to shoot. As bad as the Flyers played the calls of referee Don Koharski were worse, especially a roughing on Calder after he was head butted and a fighting major to Ben Eager where Eager dropped neither his gloves or stick when Matador jumped him. Oh yeah Niittymaki pulled his groin and left after 2 periods. Flyers are in Tampa tonight where Martin St. Louis should score a hat trick. More on the suckage here.

Now is the time to weigh in on this question: Who wins more games this year- the Flyers or the Sixers?

Romo Isn't God

OK, being a monotheist, I knew that before this game, but nonetheless, this was a fun one to watch, despite having to endure a bunch of home field calls for the Cowgirls throughout the first three quarters. TO put his signature on the game with a fairly important drop (sorry, his TD wasn't exciting and his celebration was way lame).

Again, the Birds called a GREAT game, I'm loving the use of the run. Is this our D from here on out? Is Garcia going to remain poised (minus a bad INT)? Buckhalter recovered a handful of fumbles (although the Stallworth one on the sideline was negated by a penalty, and the Garcia fumble was caused by a missed Bucky block).

What was your favorite play? TO's first or second drop (at the end)? Trots call of the Cowboys draw early in the second half? Dawks' Willie Mays impersonation basket catch INT?

Merry Christmas, Birds Fans!

Ha!

Lito made the Pro Bowl! And OB thought he was only joking. Also making it were Dawkins and Shawn Andrews. Runyan was dissed again because all his opponents hate him, and if I was him I'd be more proud of that. Named as a first alternate was Brian Westbrook. Second alternates were Jeremiah Trotter and L.J. Smith. Westbrook should have made it straight up -- he's better than Steven Jackson, Trotter is valid as a second alternate, but LJ Smith? Then again Shockey was named a starter -- what a joke.

Dallass sucks

12/25 5:00 PM ET	Opening	BoDog	Sportsbook	Pinnacle	WSEX	5Dimes
Philadelphia @ Dallass	47 -6	46.5 -7	46.5 -7	46.5 -7	46.5 -7	OFF OFF

Matchup

BONUS QUESTION: Ignoring all the scenarios, if the Eagles could beat Dallass but not make the playoffs or lose to Dallass but make the playoffs, which would you choose?

Ivan McFarlin traded...

And Iverson too for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, and two first round draft picks from the Denver Nuggets. Denver isn't a lottery team right now, but with the upcoming suspensions, a really competitive Western Conference, and the imminent disaster that's going to come once Iverson and Carmelo Anthony start playing together, it can happen.

I will miss Iverson and the incredible talent he was but the guy never grew up. I guess growing up and becoming a true professional would have meant he was selling out to the man. Too bad, because Iverson possessed everything Philadelphia fans love about their athletes and he blew it with his dumbassery. Oh well, add Iverson to the list...

Revenge on Big Blew

I'm shocked the Eagles won this game. This was a different defense than the one we've been watching the last bunch of weeks. It looked like the "ghost" of Eagles defense present early in game but from the mid-second quarter on it seems the ghost of Eagles defenses past materialized to haunt the Giants, perhaps conjured up by Dawkins. Where did they find a run defense? Where did they find a pass rush? Where did they find some blitzes that actually produced? They even tackled well and got every break on the turnovers. Both pass deflections went right into Eagles hands and the Dawkins forced fumbles too. The Lito recovery probably should have gone out of bounds but instead just sat there a yard away.

On the offensive side of the ball Westbrook was great, Garcia was really good to great except for his brain dead taunting followed up with a horrible pick, Buckhalter got the ball alot after being invisible last week and was also great. Only one dropped ball (Tapeh) and lots of great catches from the receivers. The offensive line was pretty great this game as well. Even the special teams chipped in with Mahe's big return, but what's up with Akers?

OTHER NOTES: How nice was the Carolina game where the refs "let them play", where the players decided the game, not the referees? Where there were no ticky tack or imaginary penalties followed by replays that leave the announcers and viewers going, "What?!" These referees were horrible. There's too many examples to list on both sides of the ball. Too many calls where the refs need to show some judgement and realize the penalty they think they saw had nothing to do with the play and they should just let it go. Shockey is among the top 5 biggest idiots in the NFL and top 10 most overrated but he has to be the #1 jackass. Nice hit Quintin Mikell. Another game another opening drive for points and another first half closing drive for points. Dawkins came to the rescue again this week, how long can he keep doing it? Nice calls by the Reid/Mornhinweg "braintrust". I wonder what the ghost of Eagles defense future has for next week?

Dallass sucks.

Good one idiots

Flyers traded Freddy Meyer for 34 year old Alexi Zhitnik and Clarke was just rehired a week ago. Coincidence?

I was just discussing the future of this team a couple days ago with a friend and we both agreed it would be best to let these young players grow together as a team and set things up for down the road because this season is already over. Any trade the Flyers should be making at this point is to get younger and faster and for guys whose skills will be getting better, not for guys getting older and slower whose skills are diminishing.

Idiots.

Minor site updates

Unless you're a referee you probably noticed the top graphic changed, the clock was adjusted, and there's a tiny icon aka a "favicon", next to the URL in the address field. The top graphic used to have Thome, long gone, Tocchet, longer gone, Iverson, soon to be gone, and McNabb, gone for half of every season. The new graphic has who you'd expect and Hip Hop. Hip Hop was chosen because the Sixers are a team of scrubs and don't deserve to have a player up there. You might like Iguodala but c'mon, when is he going to start showing it? I say never. Carney maybe someday, but not now.

The favicon has a 23 to represent the years without a championship and the clock was put at 12 and half till with the Flyers and Sixers having zero chance of a Championship, the Eagles having a 10% chance right now, and the Phillies having a good chance but a track record that you have to account for. Setting the clock is more of an art than a science.

Also some day I hope to move this blog off of Blogspot and onto my own server but I have too many sidejobs going on right now to find the time. I did buy the domain willweeverwin.com though, so that's a start.

Screw this team

I turned the game off after it became 6-2. Granted it is the Phantoms vs. the Penguins but they're not even trying, they're just standing around watching. And if you look at the standings, the Penguins aren't really that great. If you take away the 5 thrashings of the Flyers, the worst team in the league, they're under .500.

Why don't the Flyers hate players like Crosby as much as I do? Why are they so weak. Instead they just sit back and let themselves be made into a bunch of fools while the other teams laugh in their face. You think it would make the Flyers angry but it doesn't. Instead of lighting a competitive fire they just docilely take their shifts and shuffle back to the bench or back to center ice after another goal where the other team had all the open ice in the world or all the time and space in the world to put in rebounds.

And while all this is happening the so called "best player in the world" is traveling it, questing for a magic golden skate for the delicate bloom of his veal like foot. Back in my day the Flyers had a captain that was a man named Dave Poulin who led his overachieving teams to Conference Championships with cracked ribs and his broken and swollen feet stuffed into skates 2 sizes too small.

I can't take this team anymore. After they only scored 2 goals in a 5 game playoff series vs. Ottawa a couple years ago and made Chechmanek and Bill Barber the scapegoats, I pretty much stopped watching them the next season because of my disgust. While my disgust now isn't quite the same as then it's still enough to make me do the same. I've had enough. This will be the last "comment" on a Flyers game from me for awhile unless they actually start to compete again. But I really don't see that happening anytime soon.

Weak and weaker

12/17 4:15 PM ET	Opening	BoDog	Sportsbook	Pinnacle	WSEX	5Dimes
Philadelphia @ New York	44 -6	43.5 -6	43.5 -5	43.5 -5.5	43.5 -5.5	43.5 -5.5

Matchup

BONUS QUESTION: Will Reid be bragging after this game that the defense held Barber to 58 yards the first game? 158?

Eagles win but did they deserve to?

When the idiot Juqua Thomas facemasked Campbell while sacking him in the 3rd quarter giving the Redskins a free new set of downs, I thought he'd be joining the sorry ranks of Trent Cole and Jerome McDougal in making a play that single handedly loses a game via utter stupidity. And that was before the next play was a 34 yard TD pass to Randle El. But the Redskins out stupided the Eagles down the stretch and the Eagles held on, despite scoring zero points in the second half. And man are the Redskins stupid. Why they just didn't run the ball up the middle on 9 out of 10 plays I don't know. As it was Betts still got 171 yards rushing and the offense racked up 415 in total. But why they couldn't score a touchdown despite having first and goal on the Eagles 3 is a mystery. Why wouldn't you just call 3 running plays up the middle? Sure the Eagles might stop 1 but all 3?

Another reason the Redskins lost this game is because they dropped 2 easy interceptions. Carlos Rogers on the first play of the game and Marcus Washington later. Meanwhile the Eagles made both of theirs. Gaither's gave the offense a short field for a TD and Michael Lewis returned his for a TD. So despite the defense only being a minor speedbump of resistance, they made a few plays that did enough to win the game to overcome all the others they made to lose it, just like last week.

OTHER NOTES: Redskins field looks like crap. Another opening drive, another drive for points. Another drive to close the half, another drive for points. The Eagles blitz is terrible but it got there twice today, the biggest being Dawkins sack. Mahe submitted his entry for stupidest play of the year but there's been so many far worse it really can't compete. There will be a poll at the end of the season. In good special team play, Johnson the punter had a really good day. Westbrook had another really good game. Garcia a decent game. Dawkins had 2 good plays when the rest of the defense was doing nothing. I despise those Lexus ads.

Flyers lose, Sixers lose

It's not often you can watch the Flyers and Sixers lose at the same time on 2 consecutive nights. What a treat! Both teams played "gamely" despite being without their best player but both crapped out in the end.

In a game that changed leads several times, the Sixers were down by 1 and had possession with 21 seconds to go but inexplicably Webber lamely drove to the basket with 16 seconds left only to put up an scoop layup airball and then Dalembert, who has worse hands than the Eagles receivers, booted the rebound out of bounds. And that was essentially the game.

The Flyers were tied going into the third but lost because of a bad neutral zone turnover made worse by bad defensive coverage after it. They also gave up a goal earlier in the game on a bad defensive zone turnover and yet another terrible short handed goal. Nedved and Calder were especially worthless on the ice tonight and Richards and Sanderson both left early in the game because of injuries which didn't help things.

At least the Eagles are playing great these days so we have that to look forward to!

Flyers get beat

The title pretty much says it all. The Flyers were just beaten by a better team and the Devils won 2-0. As far as the game went, it defined "regular season matchup". Very mundane with nothing all that exciting or memorable except each goalie made 1 incredible save each. The highlight of the broadcast was Coatsey's Corner where he explained how skates way back in the day were made with leather from kangaroos but they had to stop because they went extinct.

Battle of the backups

12/10 1:00 PM ET	Opening	BoDog	Sportsbook	Pinnacle	WSEX	5Dimes
Philadelphia @ Washington	39 0	40.5 1.5	40.5 1	40.5 1	40.5 1	40.5 0

Matchup

BONUS QUESTION: If you were Jim Johnson, would you put McDougal and Bunkley, aka big bust and bigger bust, on the field at the same time?

Eagles suck less than the Panthers

I'm not sure which is worse, the Eagles defense or Jake Delhomme. The ESPN announcers were saying the game was a boxing match going back and forth blah, blah, blah counter punch this and that, etc. It was more like the Eagles D tried to blow this game but Delhomme stepped up to blow it right back.

To inadvertently demonstrate how bad the Eagles defense is, ESPN put up Carolina's red zone stats which showed them to be the worst. The very next play - Carolina's first touchdown. And how did they score? Another anemic blitz that everyone knew was coming and Rod Hood covering 1 on 1 let Steve Smith get inside position for an easy TD.

Meanwhile in Carolina's subsequent series, Delhomme was throwing 5 yard passes when Carolina needed 8, getting intentional grounding penalties, crying a bunch, and just playing weak.

The defense counterpunched however by letting the opponent score yet again in the last 2 minutes of the first half. Yet again giving up another long drive with numerous 3rd and longs converted and capped it off with yet another stupid, anemic blitz that everyone knew was coming which left Keyshawn Johnson in 1 on 1 coverage with Quentin Mikel. Quentin Mikel??? Who is calling this defense? Even the dopes on ESPN knew who the ball was going to.

Eagles defense then held Carolina and played well, that is until the Eagles offense drove for a tying TD. Then the defense, as it almost always does, allowed the opponent to drive and to go back up by 7. This Carolina TD was the result of another stupid blitz that everyone knew was coming and Carolina called a screen to counter it that went 35 yards for a TD. Poor tackling also helped.

The offense, led by Garcia, responded with a nice drive of its own and got a field goal. Of course the defense then let the Panthers go right down the field and get their own field goal with an assist from the special teams, which allowed the kickoff return go to the 40.

Then Garcia responded again. First, with a nice 3rd down pass dropped in perfectly to Westbrook down the sidelines and lastly, a really nice 40 yard TD pass to Brown that hit him perfectly in stride. It was now time for Delhomme to step to the fore.

Delhomme tossed up a Farve like duck which Dawkins easily intercepted and returned 38 yards to the Carolina 37. This led to a go ahead Akers FG. 3:13 left in the game.

Who else knew that Carolina would then easily drive right down the field into scoring position, all the way to the Eagles 7? Everyone, that's who. But holy crap, Lito intercepts it with a great catch in the endzone with 25 seconds left to win the game. Eat it Keyshawn. Nice pass Delhomme, way to lose it.

Other notes: The refs eyes must have been watering up from the cold all night because they weren't seeing TONS of things. Missed facemasks, lots of holds, all sorts of pass interference - which I approve of, and Keyshawn's end of game helmet toss down the field. Garcia played another good game and got it done when he needed to. He showed alot of toughness and resiliency in leading the offense to 13 4th quarter points and threw lots of long passes on the money. And ESPN, the fans were booing the replay of the non-call on the late hit, not Garcia you idiots. How about that Stallworth catch? Thomas Tapeh sighting with 4 minutes left.

What if Dawkins and Lito had made those easy picks vs. the Titans? Good thing they made them today. Does anyone get the feeling this team is rallying and has hope? Nah...

Sixers lose

There hasn't been a Sixers post since they started their season. Guess what? They lost again tonight. But unlike the Flyers they're only a game out of first - that's how bad the East is and why I don't watch the NBA much at all. It's really, really bad basketball. And because the NBA has the worst salary cap/guaranteed contract set up of all the leagues, teams will stay horrible for years and years. And the Sixers, lucky them, have the poster child or all that's wrong with the league - 20 million dollar man Webber who, when he's not hurt, gets the most meaningless and hollow double doubles of any player in history. A guy that moves sideways like he's wearing 100 pound cross country skis and his shoelaces are tied to together. He's not much better getting up and down the court either. He even makes Rathje look fast and athletic, so much so Michael Irvin was going on about how Rathje's great-great-great-great-grandma must have run over to the hood and something went down.

This winter is going to be a long one. Maybe they'll put ice barrel jumping and motorcycles racing on ice in the winter X-games so I'll have something to watch.

Flyers are back

Back to the ways they've traditionally lost. Blow a 2 goal lead to the Devils - check. Have Brodeur rob you of open net goals - check. Outplay Devils but Devils get crap lucky bounce and weak goals - check. Give up a terrible late 3rd period goal to the Devils to blow the game - check.

So they're still losing but at least it's not embarrassing anymore. Also, Fedoruk played good in his return and Eager won his fight. Pitkanen is playing better but he still sucks. He's the LJ Smith of the Flyers - perpetually just in reach of having a "breakout" but will never, ever get there.

Have they turned a corner?

Flyers win again! Although the third period was brutal and was a return to the worst they can play, they managed to hold on to beat the Islanders. The night before they probably should have beaten one of the NHL's top teams, Nashville, but Rathje (sucks) foiled those plans. Aside from his horrible giveaway, the Flyers mostly lost that game in their traditional way of playing really well but hitting posts and blowing chances. The biggest came right after Umberger tied it up when Forsberg had Gagne wide open all alone in front of the net but couldn't get his pass by the defense.

So this makes 5 or 6 mostly well played games in a row, 3 of which they won. Are the Flyers "back"?

Game #3 on the way to losing out?

12/04 8:30 PM ET	Opening	BoDog	Sportsbook	Pinnacle	WSEX	5Dimes
Carolina @ Philadelphia	37.5 3	37.5 3	37.5 3	37.5 3	38 3	37.5 -3

Matchup

Not sure what's up with the 5dimes spread but that's what it said.

BONUS PARADOX: What happens when a stoppable force meets a movable object?