👋 Good morning! Mike McDaniel, the new offensive coordinator of… The Los Angeles Chargers.
Just in the last week, I wrote 1,000 words on Bo Bichette and then declared that I wanted Mike McDaniel to be the Eagles offensive coordinator. Those two newsletters did not age very well!
As a mea culpa, my next newsy will be about how Zack Wheeler has no chance of returning, Bryce Harper is washed, the Eagles offense will not bounce back, Joel Embiid will not be healthy for this year’s postseason and the Flyers are gonna be stuck as a fringe playoff team forever. Let’s go Full Negadelphian, for the cause.
As a longtime Justin Herbert Hater, I am now a full-time Mike McDaniel Hater. Unlike Vic Fangio, who clearly knows a fraud when he sees one, this man is running from the grind. He is not a dog. Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! 🐶🐶🐶🐶
He did not want to coach in the NFL’s most passionate market, in Football Weather. Instead, he wanted to coach what is perhaps the NFL’s least-followed team and live in Manhattan Beach. He was clearly afraid of the thousands of Hoagie Mouth talk-radio callers referring to him as “McDaniels.” Nobody in Los Angeles will even know who he is. That is fine, he did the Eagles a favor.
(But seriously, I need to rework my expectations on this Eagles job. To not even get an interview with McDaniel is rough, when he chooses an OC job elsewhere.)
You know what else Mike McDaniel cannot get in Southern California? Wawa! His loss.
Is there any better deal than Wawa’s Big $5 Deal? From 5 a.m. to 11 a.m., you can get a Sizzli, coffee and a hash brown for just $5. Wherever you are in the area, there is a Wawa near you. Take advantage today!
Little shorter today, we will go back the last two days. As always you can reach me at [email protected]
Updated OC Search Tracker: This list comes somewhat without context, because I have no idea of the Eagles’ level of interest in everyone here. Brian Daboll interviewed on Tuesday, according to a bunch of reporters. But here is what I got…
❌ Kevin Stefanski: New HC in Atlanta
❌ Tommy Rees: Likely going with Stefanski to Atlanta
❌ Todd Monken: Interviewing with Cleveland for their HC job, but likely following John Harbaugh to New York if not
❌ Mike McDaniel: New OC for LA’s 12th-most popular team
❌ Drew Petzing: New Lions OC
✅ Jim Bob Cooter: Great name, current Indy OC interviewed for the position
✅ Mike Kafka: Former Giants OC/HC and Eagles QB interviewed for the position
✅ Zac Robinson: Former Falcons OC interviewed for the position
✅ Bobby Slowik: The Eagles requested to interview the former Texans OC
✅ Brian Daboll: Former Giants HC interviewed for the position
✅ Josh Grizzard: Former Bucs OC interviewed for the position
Christian Parker: Jordan Schultz has reported that Parker interviewed for the defensive coordinator positions in both Dallas and Green Bay.
The Eagles’ (defensive) passing game coordinator/defensive backs coach is probably gonna get a job this cycle. The 34-year-old is considered an up-and-comer in the industry, and he has a history with the Packers as a defensive quality control coach. He was considered a big part of Jaire Alexander’s (remember him!) rise to all-pro status in Green Bay.
By the way, this John Harbaugh-Joe Schoen “collaboration” is gonna be something.
Settling for J.T.: While I am certainly not thrilled about the Phillies’ offseason, I do appreciate Dave Dombrowski being honest with the media about how close they thought they were to landing Bo Bichette, and how the Kyle Tucker domino probably hurt the Phillies. Like, we do not have to pretend here.
“A gut-punch” is how Dombrowski described it. Jimmy Steaks has more here.
Less than an hour after learning that the Phillies had lost out on Bichette, Dombrowski reached out to Realmuto’s agent and re-engaged in talks, which had previously reached an impasse over money. The Phillies had offered Realmuto a three-year deal worth between $40 million and $42 million, according to sources. With Bichette gone, the Phillies upped their offer to three years, $45 million. Realmuto went from what he described as a brief period of “mourning” as he believed his time in Philadelphia might be over to quickly accepting the deal. His contract also includes the ability to make an extra $5 million per season in incentives — $1 million for an All-Star selection, $1 million for a Gold Glove, $1 million for a Silver Slugger and $2 million for finishing in the top 10 of the NL MVP voting.
Interesting details there on the incentives for Realmuto.
The Man, getting close: The Hall of Fame voting is in, and Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones are getting inducted to Cooperstown this year. Congrats to them.
But as for the guys we all care about…
Chase Utley: 59.1 percent (20% jump, and an excellent sign)
Jimmy Rollins: 25.4 percent
Cole Hamels: 23.8 percent (a strong first-year performance for Colbert!)
Oh, and the Mets traded for Luis Robert Jr. After an excellent 2023, his last two years at the plate were dreadful.
Phoenix 116, Sixers 110: Bummer.
So, there was yet again a lot of consternation among the sickos about the Sixers defensive schemes. I love the sickos by the way, they care about defensive schemes!
And there were a couple of egregious “over-helps” that led to wide-open Phoenix 3s in the third quarter. You cannot leave Devin Booker alone, Dominick Barlow! But when you look at the final numbers, this was not a defensive loss. The Sixers held the Suns to 43 percent shooting from the field and forced an obscene 22 turnovers. I do not like the egregious over-helps, they feel bad in the moment, but you also cannot only harp on the bad things (open 3s) the defensive strategy leads to and skip over the good things (turnovers, low field goal percentage).
No, the Sixers primarily lost for two reasons:
Joel Embiid and Paul George did not play
Tyrese Maxey laid his third offensive egg in four games
In Embiid’s case, fine. He plays in every game except back-to-backs, and put in a good shift last night. But Paul George missing both ends of the back-to-back was disappointing. The Sixers certainly could have used him.
Tyrese Maxey shot 7-25 from the field. In the Sixers’ last three losses, and three of their last four games, Maxey is shooting a combined 21-64 from the field. No number of steals is gonna make up for that. Is this perhaps Nick Nurse’s penalty for playing Maxey the most minutes in the league? Perhaps, but yeah, you just are not gonna win when Maxey cannot shoot straight and Embiid-George are both out. That is essentially an 0-3 from your three big guns.
Without excusing a dreadful outing, I do think you have to ask if he has simply been overworked up to this point. Against Phoenix and over the last couple of weeks, he has missed quite a few shots that feel like gimmes for the regular version of Maxey. You’re going to miss uncontested runners in the lane and open catch-and-shoot threes over the course of a long season, but not this many in a short span with Maxey’s skill set. So you start to wonder about how many minutes he has played and how that would weigh on his shoulders. Perhaps Nick Nurse has seen and felt that, because the Sixers changed their sub patterns on Tuesday, pulling Maxey out of the lineup for multiple unexpected breaks in the late stages of quarters. Still, Maxey carried a heavy workload, playing close to 20 of 24 available first-half minutes, and dragging his legs through the third quarter with Edgecombe sitting for almost five minutes of the third.
I like how the Suns play, by the way. Nice story.
The Flyers are in Utah to take on the Mammoth (9:00 p.m., NBC Sports Philly). I am gonna write about them more in-depth tomorrow, and then tackle the Sixers and the trade deadline on Friday.
Your tentative Wednesday schedule at PHLY:
🎙️ The Anthony Gargano Show: 9:00 a.m.
⚾ Phillies: 12:00 p.m.
🦅 Eagles: 2:00 p.m.
🏀 Sixers: 3:00 p.m.
🦅 Cheap Seats: 7:00 p.m.
🏒 Flyers: Pre and post-game
Let’s make it a good one.
Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS
