👋 Good morning! Still not too late for Sirianni to shave his head.

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Righteous Felon Craft Jerky.

This Chester County based company has the perfect snack that satisfies your hunger and provides the right amount of protein to fulfill your body’s daily needs, and they have been doing it for over a decade. If you are the kind of person who wants a deal and snacks delivered right to your doorstep, you can order online using discount code PHLY20 for 20% off. Righteous Felon has all kinds of cool variety packs and bundles on the site.

OK, let’s get you to the weekend. As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

Great Eagles show yesterday. Julia’s last show as full-time Eagles producer (don’t worry, she is not going anywhere, we just made an excellent new hire to lighten her workload), and speaking of producers, a Cliffy Two Socks cameo!

(Cliff is not the new hire, even if he is excellent. I know, it’s confusing.)

My brain has been broken by the internet, and now I find myself only able to communicate in memes. And not like all of the memes, just a few.

Anyway, here is one of them.

The Eagles have three Super Bowl appearances and two Lombardi Trophies in the last eight years. A run of success that was beyond my wildest dreams for most of my life. For the last seven weeks, I have kept that success in mind, fighting against the impulse to complain too much. I have been sympathetic to the ideas that repeating is difficult and that these guys took on an immense physical toll last season and might be paying the piper a bit this year.

Then I watched football all last Sunday. And while the entire league is flawed in one way or another, designing and executing an offense just should not be as hard as the Eagles are making it look. Not with this level of talent. Hence the sad Squidward.

Heading into the season, I thought the Eagles offense would have to take a slight step forward to compensate for the slight step back that the defense would likely take after their historic 2024 season. And that has not happened, for a multitude of reasons. I wrote about them on Monday, if you would like to read.

There apparently was another Meeting this week, a team-wide one. Hopefully this Meeting goes better than the last Meeting, it is a little hard to keep track of them. But when I look at this game against Minnesota, my fears come down to the competency of the two respective offensive play-callers. A Tale of Two Kevins…

EJ touched on those matchups in his preview. And if you believe that Kevin Patullo is being made a scapegoat, fine, substitute in whatever combination of people who scheme and call the Eagles offense that you would like.

The point remains. Right now, I have less confidence in the Eagles staff putting their players in a position to succeed than the Vikings staff. How could you not think that? The offense has looked that bad for long stretches. And then on the other side, Carson Wentz is getting rid of the ball faster than anyone in the NFL. Carson Wentz!

There has been a whole bunch of 2023 vs. 2025 talk locally this week. I am not gonna do that today, outside of pointing out that for all the flak Brian Johnson gets, his offense was much better than this one through Week 6. My general hope is that the Eagles still have enough time on the calendar to turn it around. Falling apart for a few weeks in October feels different than falling apart for a few weeks in December.

Regardless, this is a big one on Sunday for Nick Sirianni, Kevin Patullo, Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense. After blowing a textbook get-right game in New Jersey, they now look to get going against arguably the NFL’s top defense.

Injury report: Jalen Carter, after declaring that he will play this week after practice on Wednesday, was moved back to a limited participant on Thursday. Hmm. Good to see Quinyon Mitchell get upgraded to a full participant, though.

Landon Dickerson has had an Allen Iverson season, in terms of how many injuries he is playing through. Knee, back and ankle already. Put the Dickerson injury graphic up, FOX!

Wentz destroys Washington: I got a lot of good emails about Carson Wentz memories. Thank you to everyone who wrote in.

But the most common answer I got was the 2017 game against Washington on Monday Night Football. Wentz threw for four touchdowns and also ran for 63 yards in that one. He was at the absolute peak of his powers. Three plays that stand out from that masterpiece:

That was some really high-level stuff from Wentz.

Winnipeg 5, Flyers 2: The consensus on last night’s post-game show: The Orange and Black did not necessarily play all that well, but the Jets did not outplay them by three goals either.

One bad goal by Sam Ersson (feels like Dan Vladar has a clear early lead in the timeshare), one costly mishandled puck by Nikita Grebenkin, one unlucky goal that bounced off two Flyers… and 10 Jets goals on 14 shots for a .714 save percentage. At some point, Ersson gotta do better than that. You certainly ain’t beating Connor Hellebuyck with 10 of 14.

Owen Tippett, who had a frustrating season in 2024-25 after a breakout season of sorts in 2023-24 that saw the Flyers hand him an eight-year extension, had that roller-coaster career path encapsulated in this one game. The Red Rifle struggled to handle the puck and made some odd decisions with it (including a ridiculous play Bill broke down) for the first 35 minutes… and then snapped out of it for this moment of brilliance.

As Charlie noted, Tippett can be brilliant in transition with his speed and shooting ability. I still have this doozy against St. Louis from a few years ago in my head. But to become a player worthy of a $6.2 million AAV, he has to do the boring stuff better. He has to make better decisions on the cycle and in the offensive zone.

Matvei Michkov scored in garbage time, too. Was it a very impactful goal? No, but shooters shoot. Let’s hope that the net looks like an ocean (or maybe a sea, the Caspian Sea?) for Matty after he saw one go in.

❌ Curt Cignetti: Cross him off the shortlist! The Indiana coach and PA native, who is currently doing one of the best coaching jobs I have ever seen, signed a new eight-year contract for $11.6 per season. Again, incredible coaching job, but thank Penn State for the school’s extra motivation. Matt Rhule Time in Happy Valley?

I bet the buyout for Cignetti is like $2 billion or something, too. Man, I really should have been a college football coach.

Dombo and Topper speak: Another year, another sad Phillies post-mortem presser. Hand up, since it was the length of a romantic comedy, I did not watch the whole thing.

But I did read a good bit of the coverage. Some of the “96 wins!” and “Dodgers are really good!” comments from Dave Dombrowski did not seem to go over all that well with the locals. I get it. While those points are undoubtedly true, and I do not necessarily blame Dombrowski for saying them — I remember being angrier after last year’s post-mortem — people just do not want to hear to that stuff. Not after coming up short in October for the fourth straight season.

Some major talking points…

📋 The coaching staff is back: I wondered about Rob Thomson, and he’s back. Dombrowski also mentioned that Topper will also get a year tacked on to his deal, to avoid lame-duck status. I wondered about Kevin Long, and he’s back as well. Those might be the right decisions too, for all I know.

Topper’s entire coaching staff is back, except for…

🪑 The Phillies are adding a bench coach: Dombrowski and Thomson surveyed the entire organization, turned over every stone, and you know who they decided was not pulling their weight?

Bench coach Mike Calitri. Apparently, Mike Calitri was not Bench Coaching hard enough. I knew it!

Calitri is sticking around, mind you, and keeping most of his responsibilities. It just seems like the Phillies want another person with managerial experience on the bench. Topper said he will be involved in picking that person, which is a weird dynamic because he could in practice be selecting his replacement if things go south. A bunch of people mentioned former Pirates manager Derek Shelton as a potential option, and that seems right to me. He has a shared history with Topper through their time with the Yankees.

👋 Buh-bye Casty: “Well, we’ll see what happens,” Dombrowski said. I would wager a decent amount that what happens is that Nick Castellanos is not gonna spend the fifth and final year of his $100 million deal outside of Philly, one way or another.

✅ Other free agents: Nothing too crazy here. They would like to retain Kyle Schwarber. This is my shocked face.

Dombrowski did not say this, but from my couch, I would peg “The Big Four” free agents in terms of likelihood to return: Kyle Schwarber/J.T. Realmuto, Harrison Bader, Ranger Suárez. Just from my couch though, like my guy Windy always says, no need to aggregate me.

Other than that, Dombrowski does not know what more Justin Crawford can do in the minors. Correct. Dombrowski made it sound like José Alvarado will be back. Sure, as long as we all can boo him for the entire month of April. Dombrowski also made it sound like Otto Kemp has a chance to be an everyday player. Not so sure about that one.

🔥 Part 1: In the wake of Orion Kerkering’s season-ending blunder, Matt Strahm, who seems very protective of Young Kerk, suggested that the Phillies had not done enough pitcher fielding practice (PFPs, as they call them in The Biz) in the lead-up to the playoffs.

And Dombrowski was not having that: “As it turns out, we did PFPs in the postseason. He didn’t do ‘em!” Legit LOL.

🔥 Part 2: Easily the most interesting part of the availabilities. Calling out Matt Strahm is one thing, calling out Bryce Harper is another.

From Jim’s excellent piece for the site, this seems like a straight-up challenge from Dombrowski to Harper: You were good, but you were not elite this season. Can you get back there?

Woah! Meanwhile, Freddie Freeman pulls out his phone at his locker getting ready for Game 3 of the NLCS and is like, “What the hell, man?”

It’s true that Bryce was very good this season, but not elite. This is his seventh season as a Phillie, and it was clearly his worst at the plate. On a related note, Bryce is 33 years old, has an incredibly violent swing and battled a bunch of injuries. Not sure if he will ever be a .900 OPS guy again.

This is one I am keeping an eye on. Harper was already signed long-term when Dombrowski came aboard. And, if you will recall, Harper and Scott Boras have made noise about wanting a few more years tacked on to his contract… which has six more years left on it. Dombrowski gracefully told him, “Nah.”

I feel for the Milwaukee Brewers, by the way. The Brew Crew and the Phillies are probably the second and third-best teams in baseball. It’s just so friggin’ hard to score runs against that team. And, oh yeah, this series is gonna be the first slide in Rob Manfred’s salary-cap sessions next year. Tough day for Bryce all around.

Let’s start with the injury news.

🔜 Joel Embiid: There is “a chance” Embiid could play tonight, in the preseason finale against Minnesota. Preseason NBA hoops is usually very much not it, but I would support this for two reasons:

Now, watch him not play.

Not as 🔜 Paul George: PG again played some five-on-five at practice, and that is good. If you told me after his mysterious summer surgery that we would be here today, I think I would have taken it. #AsExpected though, Shams reported that PG will not play in the opener in Boston next week… but also that his return should not take too much longer. Again, I would have taken this timeline in the summer.

🍿🚗 Most importantly, Adem Bona got got: I do not know what Bona did, nor do I know who started the NBA pranking trend of pouring a comical amount of popcorn into some dude’s car. Probably a couple of those huge bags that you can buy in bulk. But Bona had that happen to him, plus someone took a tire off said car because he broke some sort of rule. That last part seems a little mean.

Needless to say, the vets enjoyed all of this.

The vibes in Camden seem… OK? Worth noting, because the vibes in Camden are often decidedly not OK.

Also worth pointing out: Did you see who our national hoops writer Tim Cato picked to win the title?

Union Corner: So, they call Saturday “Decision Day” in the MLS. Every team plays a match — East teams all at 6:00 p.m., West teams all at 9:00 p.m. — and the playoff bracket gets shaken out. I like that.

The Union are in Charlotte on Saturday, but it is not Decision Day for them. They clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and will play at home until they are eliminated. The Union will then play the winner of 8/9 wild-card match in the conference quarterfinals. We do not know who those teams are, it is currently Chicago and Columbus, but that all will be sorted out on Decision Day.

The MLS is weird, because the conference quarterfinals are best-of-three and the final three rounds are all single elimination. Again, weird. But if the Union advance, those final three rounds will all be in Chester.

Fun football game last night. Had it all: two old guys slinging it, unbelievably bad defenses, Mike Tomlin being a baby about the Browns trading Joe Flacco in-division, Tee Higgins channeling his inner Brian Westbrook with a smart play, Mike Tomlin extra-cowardly punts, etc.

Let’s get to the weekend schedule:

Wait, it’s Minnesota Weekend?!?! Nobody told me about this.

Your tentative Friday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Have a great weekend. Let’s make it a good one today.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS