👋 Good morning! Five years and $130 million for Ranger from Boston.

Despite knowing this was coming, a large part of me is sad. Ranger Suárez might’ve had the highest approval rating of any athlete in Philadelphia. A pitcher’s pitcher in the regular season and a stone-cold killer in the postseason. Tyler and Bill reacted here.

That said, the other part of me is pleased with the outcome here. The man who signed with the Phillies in 2012 for $25,000 gets paid a bunch of money, which is a great story. “No whammy! No whammy! No whammy!” got replaced by “No Mets! No Mets! No Mets!” Last time I checked, the Boston Red Sox are not the Mets. And hey, Ranger might have taken the Red Sox out of The Bo Bichette Sweepstakes while he was at it. What a guy.

Good signing for Boston, too. In the past, the Sawx have found that some players struggle playing under the microscope in a Northeastern baseball city like Boston. Well, not only does Ranger not mind playing in a pressure-packed market, I am not even sure he will realize that he is in one.

I am going to miss Ranger dotting 91 mph fastballs on the inside corner and waiting until the last possible second to throw a frozen rope to first base. Loved watching that guy pitch, except the few times each season he got absolutely shelled.

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Just one question for y’all today, since this topic has been in the news.

Working backwards, name the last ten Eagles offensive coordinators in order. Not necessarily the playcallers, we went over those for Jalen Hurts yesterday. Offensive coordinators. Go.

Answer at the bottom.

To give you a little peak behind the curtain, I like to have some topics laid out at the beginning of each week. And this week, barring any crazy Bo Bichette news, I had a Sixers topic earmarked for today.

And then the Sixers played one of their worst games of the season in getting drubbed by Cleveland at home. Sick, guys. Kyle’s observations are here.

Two takeaways from the game:

I do not know why, but the 2025-26 Sixers seem to save their stinkers for Xfinity Mobile Arena. Off the top of my head, the four worst games of the first half of the season (second Orlando game, Brooklyn, Denver and now Cleveland) all happened in South Philly. As someone who has to podcast after the home games and only the home games, I would appreciate if the Sixers saved their stinkers for the road from now on. Make Bodner talk about that slop.

The Sixers are now 10-10 at home and 12-7 on the road this season. Taking the opposite path of the 2019-20 “Too Big To Fail” Sixers, it seems.

The Sixers probably got too much national love before this one. The Sixers have been playing well and they were on ESPN last night, so they got more coverage. Podcasts, TV and yes, the ol’ written word. Reading their press clippings, it seems!

In Embiid’s last 11 games before The Cleveland Debacle, he and Tyrese Maxey have a +11.5 net rating. That puts them up there with the Jokic-Murray pairing, right where you want to be.

The numbers are trending up overall. In particular, Embiid’s minutes, two-point percentage and net rating are all going in the right direction. Like old times, the Sixers are winning Embiid’s minutes handily. He is moving so much better than at the beginning of the season.

And then, like the rest of his teammates, Joel went out and laid an egg against Cleveland. Five turnovers for the big fella in the first quarter, yuck. The two-man game with Embiid and Maxey was stifled for the most part. We will see if they can respond on Friday against this same Cleveland team.

But I will spin this as a positive: Because Joel has played in 9 of the Sixers’ last 11 games, the bad moments get put on tape too. The Sixers can learn about how the offense will best run, because Joel is actually out there and providing you with the normal trial and error of an NBA season.

And yeah, I am not getting ahead of myself. I know that nothing is promised, particularly with Joel Embiid. But if you told me back in October that we would be getting one stinker from Embiid and the Sixers every ten or so games, I would have taken that. They probably would have, too.

John Harbaugh, welcome back to the NFC East: Harbaugh is expected to be named the new coach of the Giants, just after a few i’s get dotted and t’s crossed. Seems like Harbaugh will have some juice in that building, and may even get a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike named after him.

Will be curious if Harbaugh brings in Todd Monken with him to run the offense. Speaking of that…

Coordinator talk: Study up, this is what we are getting into tomorrow.

Buffalo 5, Flyers 2: The Flyers’ special teams are just not very special right now.

Charlie made a note on last night’s post-game show that the Orange and Black are killing just 59 percent of their penalties over the last two weeks. That is not gonna get it done.

The Orange and Black have now lost four games in a row, and now Dan Vladar left the game after the first period with an undisclosed injury. Hopefully that is just precautionary, because an Ersson-Kolosov timeshare is the stuff of nightmares. We have seen that movie before. Jamie Drysdale did return for this one, so that is one bit of good news.

The Flyers have 11 games over the next three weeks, as the NHL schedule gets super-condensed before the Olympic break. Not the best time to be playing your worst hockey of the season. Gotta find a way out of this.

Phillies quick-hitters…

I just had to share this photo: Just like eight meniscus surgeries ago, JoJo is jumping into the second row. I will never forget the time he almost killed Regina King at Madison Square Garden.

Reporter: "What does diving headfirst into the stands tell you about your confidence in how you feel with your body?"

Embiid: "Uh. I may be stupid, but at that time I felt like we needed that."

Dom Barlow injury: Barlow had a pretty nasty fall in this one and suffered a back contusion. Those can really hurt for those super skinny guys! Thankfully, the x-rays were negative. Hopefully this does not take Barlow as long to recover as The Dreaded Lacerated Elbow That Kept Him Out Weeks.

The Flyers are back in action tonight (sigh). They are in Pittsburgh tonight to take on the Penguins (7:00 p.m., ESPN). And wouldn’t today be a great time to get some Bo Bichette Phillies news?

Your tentative Thursday schedule at PHLY:

And oh yeah, the Eagles coordinators in order: Kevin Patullo, Kellen Moore, Brian Johnson, Shane Steichen, Mike Groh, Frank Reich, Pat Shurmur, Marty Mornhingweg, Brad Childress, Rod Dowhower

(And if you want to count the Press Taylor/Jeff Stoutland combo for 2020, that is fine. The Eagles technically did not have a real coordinator that cursed year.)

Let’s make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS