4-9 inches

12/20 1:00 PM ET	Opening	betED	Bodog	5Dimes	SPORTSBETTING
San Francisco @ Philadelphia	44.5 -10	41 -7.5	41.5 -8	41 -9	41 -7.5

Matchup • Expanded Odds • Line History

Bonus Question: Who else wishes this game was scheduled for Saturday or the storm scheduled for Sunday?

Well, the Flyers suck

So instead, let's read an article about the 10 best hockey fights of the decade and watch the videos. Interesting to note that 5 out of the 10 involve former or current Flyers.

Phillies reach deal to get Roy Halladay says SI.com

Who knows what's really going on, but SI.com says:

The Phillies are in agreement on a three-team trade with the Mariners and Blue Jays to acquire star pitcher Roy Halladay, SI.com has learned. All indications are that Cliff Lee will likely be heading from Philadelphia to Seattle in the trade.

Sources say Halladay will agree to a contract extension to complete the deal. It's expected to be a formality, and though terms are not yet clear, it's expected to be worked out in the next couple days. Halladay wanted to be in Philadelphia, as the Phillies train in Clearwater, Fla., not far from his offseason home.

The Phillies are giving up prospects to Toronto to get Halladay, but it isn't known yet which players are in the deal. Philadelphia, which would also get prospects from Seattle, is trying to keep its payroll at around $140 million.

UPDATE: Still nothing final yet. This interview with Todd Zolecki was the best one I heard today trying to make sense of things.

FINAL UPDATE:
Here is the trade with Toronto:
PHILLIES: Roy Halladay and 6 million
BLUEJAYS: catcher Travis d'Arnaud, right-hander Kyle Drabek and outfielder Michael Taylor. The Blue Jays flipped Taylor to the Athletics for third baseman Brett Wallace.

Here is the trade with Seattle:
PHILLIES: right-hander Phillippe Aumont, outfielder Tyson Gillies and right-hander Juan Ramirez
MARINERS: Cliff Lee

So if the Phillies wanted to spend $9 million more this year and forgo the prospects (that they're now trying hard to sell you on their greatness), and settle for 2 #1 picks when Lee walked at the end of 2010, they could have had Halladay AND Lee for this season.

The Eagles taught them well. They'll be there in the end with a chance!

Eat it NY

The last game in the soulless dump known as Giants Stadium was a memorable and historic one. Together the teams scored 83 points and put up almost 900 yards of offense. And the Eagles won.

The Eagles jumped out to a quick 14 point lead before the Giants put up 10 points of their own, went up by 13 again by scoring on a 2 minute drive before the end of the half while getting the PAT blocked. Then the Eagles even fell behind by 1 point in the third quarter, but that only lasted a minute thanks to a 60 yard bomb to Jackson on the Eagles next play. Then the best drive of the season put them up by 14 again. The Giants got a TD with 1:35 left to make it a touchdown game again, but they blew the onside kick. The Giants did get the ball back but Howard made Manning fumble the ball away to seal the Eagles 45-38 victory.

Special note on the best drive of the season or maybe Reid's entire reign
With 13:12 left in the game and the outcome still undecided, the Eagles started with the ball on their own 9. Seven minutes and 24 seconds later Weaver was pounding it over from the 1 for a touchdown. Then they even converted a 2 point conversion attempt to make the lead 14 again. This was a completely edifying drive - 10 times more satisfying than a quick strike long bomb TD. The drive consisted of 6 runs and 6 passes. This was a drive I want my football team to do all the time. This is how football should be played. Is it possible Reid is FINALLY learning?

Other notes:

• With the win, the Eagles are the winningest visiting team in Giants Stadium history.
• After shutting out the Falcons for 59 minutes and 59 seconds last week, the defense was pathetic this week and were shredded by the Giants for 512 yards - 391 passing and 121 running. Bad run defense, bad tackling, and bad coverage. They did score a TD though.
• Opening drive worked to perfection. Great play call on Celek's touchdown.
• Great play calling almost all game actually.
• Super lucky bounce on Sheldon Brown's fumble recovery and return. That won't be happening again anytime soon.
• Congratulations to McNabb on throwing the ball away on a screen the Giants figured out. I didn't know he had it in him.
• I'll give Vick credit this game. The pass to Jackson was right on the money and he had a nice straight arm to pick up a first down on his second play. His third play was a stupid call and was destined to fail. Fourth play was a nice run for the TD to cap a 2 minute drive. Fifth play was a nice 5 yard run up the middle to set up Weaver's 1 yard TD.
• Amazingly competent and well executed 2 minute drive before the half by the Eagles. Who knew they could do that?
• I've given up on the government, I've given up on the country, and I've given up on the Eagles ever winning a Super Bowl. The only thing I could still believe in was NFL refereeing. But no longer.
  1. Ticky-tack crap on Mikel on illegal contact giving the Giants first downs galore and extending their drive for their first TD, then Celek gets MUGGED in the endzone when the ball is coming to him and no call. That cost the Eagles 4 points.
  2. The entire left side of the Giants line OBVIOUSLY false starts on first and goal and no call. Giants gain 4 yards and score a play later.
  3. One ref "rules" a "forward fumble" when every single player, the coaches, and the other refs on the field made their own ruling of incomplete pass. And no automatic review.
  4. The worst call had to be Dixon's fumble on the kickoff return where the Eagles CLEARLY recover it with 3 seconds left and the refs say time expired and run off the field and no automatic review. That cost the Eagles 3 points.
  5. Review on Hicks catch was wrong. He bobbled it again out of bounds and never had control.
  6. The Giants Schubert(?) comes over and punches an Eagle from behind to start the end of the game brawl and the refs do nothing even though one was looking right at it. Then they later call Cole and O'Hara for penalties while Schubert gets nothing.
The one judgment call they got right was the Manning dive fumble. But in my opinion that wasn't even close.
• Incredible punt return by Jackson. The only problem was it was down the wrong sideline so we couldn't see the Giants bench react and the special teams coach slam his crap to the ground in disgust.
• Eagles special teams were pretty good overall.
• Eagles benefited from a lot of Giants drops in the first half.
• "The movie is always good, but the ending always stinks." - Al Michaels on Reid, McNabb and the Eagles. Yay, a national guy that seems to get it.
• Dungy picked the Giants to win and was trying to justify it postgame noting all the Giants mistakes and missed opportunities. He didn't note the points the Eagles left on the field or their mistakes or the refs mistakes costing the Eagles points.
• Jason Peters was wearing a Yankees hat for post game interviews. Idiot.

Dallass lost again and it was great appetizer to the the main course. This was a great game, and the first game of the season I got emotionally involved in.

Delaware Parlay Play Picks for Week 14

Pick 3 games in the comments to win! Get the odds from the official 1/2 point parlay card.

Giant game

12/13 8:20 PM ET	Opening	betED	Bodog	5Dimes	SPORTSBETTING
Philadelphia @ NY Giants	46.5 0	44 -1	44 -1	44.5 -1	47 -1

Matchup • Expanded Odds • Line History

Bonus Question: So how about that 3 year extension?

Flyers fail to score once again

I did not see much of the game, but here is a recap of what I did see on some of the seven (7!) power plays the Flyers failed to score upon: pass back to Pronger at the point. He shoots. It's blocked!

Oh yeah those power plays included a 5 on 3. Weak. Fire Laviolette!

Excellent defensive effort

The Eagles got the job done versus a depleted Atlanta team. The majority of the credit goes to the defense who delivered a huge goal line stand at the end of the first half, scored a TD, batted down about a half dozen passes at the line, shut down Tony Gonzalez, and almost <cliche>pitched a shut out</cliche>. Great scheme by Junior Jim Johnson.

Leonard Weaver was the star of the first half with a TD and several other big plays, but the offense as a whole was still abysmal in the redzone, scoring only 13 points in four trips. But they figured it out at halftime and took the the second half kickoff right down the field for a touchdown. After that the game was in the bag, and they'd go on to win 34-7.

Other notes:

• Always like the no huddle to start the game.
• Atlanta made a lot of shoestring tackles.
• Eagles got a nice bounce on that Falcons fumbled kickoff and good to see the Eagles capitalize on the turnover and convert a third and long in the process.
• Weaver probably has the best hands of any fullback to ever play.
• There is an entire category of celebrity in this country that I don't get. Tiny talent and serial athlete dater Carrie Underwood is in that group.
• Despite the two interceptions, nobody in the Eagles secondary has any kind of hands but Samuels. The non-gimme interceptions were all dropped.
• The Atlanta kick returner got crushed a bunch today. Kick coverage was actually good.
• Another week, another terrible job by the refs just blatantly making crap up.
  1. On the Samuels hit that caused a fumble that was ruled an incompletion that Reid challenged, but then was denied his challenge because "there was no defensive recovery," I have no idea what the refs and announcers were talking about. The Eagles defense IMMEDIATELY recovered the ball.
  2. Gonzales throws Macho Harris down to the turf and Harris gets a pass interference penalty.
  3. Horrible roughing the passer call on Demps who did nothing wrong at all followed by a horrible 2 minutes later call on Sean Jones "hitting a defenseless receiver."
• Hey Subway, Jared is fat again.
• Celek had a bad game pass blocking.
• Eagles short yardage still totally sucks. If they do make it, it's just barely.
• Merrill Reese once again predicted what Vick would do in a game predicting he would score a TD. Rob Ellis predicted the bomb, although he said it would come on the first play of the game. Didinger predicted the blowout.
• Except for the odd running back effort, the Atlanta players went down really easy.
• Sheldon Brown's hamstring looked fine on his interception return for a TD.
• Just like he did vs. Kansas City in total garbage time, Rocca downs a punt at the one when it really matters.

For Better, For Worse - There's Hope!

Reports are out that Reid might have his contract extension this week. The only thing I'm encouraged by is that the AR/5 combo will probably not continue on together past another year at the most. And, in this game today, it looks like Reid has figured out that Weaver can be utilized more. Not as much power-running (TD pass and 50yder started as a pass), but good stuffs!

Fire Laviolette

Usually a truly horrendous Flyers' performance is saved for when the team is facing elimination in the playoffs, but I guess the Flyers thought that the debut of their new coach was a big enough deal to unleash a supremely pathetic effort. It was all here, weak play from the get go leads to an opponent scoring first, turnovers galore, being outworked for loose pucks, poor goaltending, shitty passing, and bad penalties. There was nothing positive to take from this game, no matter how hard the Pollyannas on the broadcast team tried to sell you on winning a period (which did not happen) and other crap. Also imagine if Ovechkin had played in this game. Since Stevens is now gone, Pelly can ramp up his campaign to strip Richards of his captaincy. You can start with his handling of Carcillo's anger management issues:

After the game, Richards talked to Carcillo about showing more discipline.

"All I can do is hold people accountable here," Richards said, "and I don't think it's going to be a problem anymore."

Here is the beat article about the latest disaster.

Flyers players fire Stevens

Well, another coach, another short tenure. The Flyers were underachieving with their cap maxed roster and since you can't fire the players, as the cliche goes, you fire the coach. Maybe the braintrust thinks this move will catapult the Flyers to a Cup victory like it did for the Penguins last year, who were also underachieving until Bylsma was installed. Somehow I doubt it.

Friends of P

Third base, held down by Pedro Feliz the last couple of seasons, looked to be a possible area for the Phillies to upgrade in 2010. This seemingly became a necessity after Pedro didn't take too kindly to the Phillies not picking up a $5.5 million contract option for next season.

The Phillies took care of their third base future by looking to their past Thursday, signing Placido Polanco to a three-year, $18 million deal.

The offensive stats favored Polanco last season, despite a very slow start to the season. He hit about 20 points higher, scored 20 more runs and stuck out 20 times less than Feliz, while hitting two fewer homers and knocking in 10 less runners.

The big question, for me anyway, is if Polanco can handle his defensive duties as well as Feliz has in recent seasons. Polanco has played third before (and should really have been playing third for the Phils since Utley came up), but not much recently. By the few accounts I've heard, he has a good arm, so if that's the case he should be pretty close to Feliz defensively.

Overall it sounds like an upgrade as Polanco can hit in the two-hole in the lineup, and step up from a slightly down season last year. In this park and lineup, that seems very doable, even if Feliz never saw an uptick in production since joining the club.

In other business, the Phillies also signed utility infielder Juan Castro (zzzzz) and backup catcher Brian Schneider, who looks like a solid acquisition.


Soundtrack for writing this post provided by The Rentals.

Delaware Parlay Play Picks for Week 13

Pick 3 games in the comments to win! Get the odds from the official 1/2 point parlay card.

Birdfight

12/06 1:00 PM ET	Opening	betED	Bodog	5Dimes	SPORTSBETTING
Philadelphia @ Atlanta	46.5 1.5	44 5.5	OFF OFF	44 5.5	44 5.5

Matchup • Expanded Odds • Line History

Bonus Question: Will the Eagles win the division based on how things are setting up for them and Dallass?

Iverson

Iverson is Vick without the dogfighting and contrition. Both make no sense for their respective teams, both no longer are what they once were, and both, while talented, couldn't be bothered to put in the work to learn how to play their sports correctly.