👋 Good morning! I could do that.

(Editor’s note: I could not do that.)

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Since we are in the middle of July, it’s offseason grades time for the two Farg dwellers. The Flyers are up first today, Sixers tomorrow. If you want to listen to actual experts talk about the Flyers offseason, check out Bill and Charlie’s pod from last week. Those guys have been killing it recently.

I think the best way to break the Flyers’ offseason down is by looking at the five different types of business that Danny Briere, Keith Jones, and co. did.

Trade: Just one big move to talk about here, and it is a good one…

Let’s start by stating the obvious: The Zegras trade might not work out for the Orange and Black. A middle-of-the-road outcome (so, not a bad one) is that he becomes a talented second-line winger. But Zegras finished with 125 points in his Age 20 and 21 seasons as a center, and that was not that long ago. As always, listen to Charlie.

All I can do here is judge the process, and this seems like really good process to me. Just a week before swinging this deal, Briere basically said, “It is impossible to get a good center via trade, teams just do not give those guys up.” Well, maybe it was not impossible.

To be fair, Zegras is not a slam-dunk top-six center. If that were the case, Anaheim would not have traded him. But Zegras has the talent to be one, it costed incredibly little to acquire him, and the Flyers can move on from him easily if things do not work out. This does not affect their long-term plans, unless Zegras is good and they want him to affect their long-term plans. Poehling is a good fourth-line center, but you can acquire those guys. In fact, the Flyers already have those guys.

My guess is that Zegras is coming cross-county with something to prove. If not, he might be a loser… but let’s cross that bridge when we get there. I love this trade. I have no idea if it will work, but I love that type of swing: High-upside, low-risk. Hard to pull off.

Draft: This was the Flyers’ most important day of the offseason, and I am gonna break it into three buckets. Did I mention you should read Charlie here and here?

The first bucket is the selection of Porter Martone at No. 6 overall. This is a pick we could potentially look back on in five years and regret. The Flyers need centers, and James Hagens and Jake O’Brien were on the board. If one of those guys hits in a big way (will be particularly interesting to track Hagens in Boston), it will be a bummer. Or a Buiummer, if you have followed recent Flyers draft history (I will sho myself out). But despite the need for a center, I liked this pick. Particularly, I liked that the Flyers stuck to their board and said, “This is the best guy, someone who has a high floor and high upside, we are taking him.”

The second bucket is the Jack Nesbitt pick. Not just the Nesbitt pick, but trading 22 and 31 for 12 and drafting a guy with some major concerns (skating, in particular). Then you hear the Flyers brass talk about Nesbitt, and you get some “two years away from being two years away” vibes. That is the guy you are trading two firsts for? Why not just take two swings later in the round?

Again, I am focused on the process here and I did not love it. Maybe I will love the result though, and in that case, who cares? If Nesbitt is bullying pipsqueaks in the Stanley Cup playoffs with his 6-foot-4 frame, I will absolutely own his jersey. But right now, I have some questions even if he does play the right position.

The third bucket involves the rest of the picks, particularly the FOUR second-rounders. I cannot say I know a ton about these guys. But Carter Amico, Jack Murtaugh, Shane Vansaghi and Matthew Gard are all huge, I do know that. I kind of view this as a neutral grade, since we have no idea how good any of these guys are. But I am certainly excited about them. Briere and co. did good work to acquire those picks via trade throughout the years, it is just not really part of this grade.

Free agency: Probably my least favorite portion for the Flyers. Definite overpay for Christian Dvorak in terms of AAV, but it was a position of need and they utilized their cap space to make it a one-year deal. Especially with the potential lack of center depth on the big club, fine. Not fun, but fine.

If Dan Vladar turns into a decent tandem goalie, this will make the future grade for free agency a lot higher. But I wish I felt better about Vladar. The guy has never played more than 30 games in a season, and his results are very middling.

Extensions: Three of these bad boys…

Coach: Oh yeah, I forgot about this one with all of the wheeling and dealing of the past few weeks. The Flyers hired Rick Tocchet, and regardless of what we think about Tocchet, he is highly respected around the NHL. For what it’s worth, I have enjoyed his media appearances — Tocchet did one with us, in fact — and can at least buy into the optimistic spin that the players are gonna like him and he is a decent blend of old and new-school.

Plus, Tocchet clearly loves this organization. Maybe I am being overly sentimental, but especially for someone who had options, I like that.

Final Grade: B (and an A- if we are doing grade inflation and not using a true A-through-F scale)

Bill Barnwell: My guy Billy Barns! I gotta give the WWL some credit, if you post content gassing the Eagles up, I will post it. Barnwell put out his list of the Top-25 NFL teams of the past 25 years, and the Eagles had three teams make the cut. Two in the top-five, too! Aaron Schatz spit out his coffee reading this…

The three teams ahead of the Eagles: 2004 New England, 2013 Seattle… and 2007 New England. I am just gonna pretend that the ‘07 Patriots, Super Bowl losers, are not on the list and bump the ‘24 and ‘17 Birds up to No. 3 and No. 4, respectively. Other than that, nice work Billy Barns. Jeffrey Lurie is probably not having it, but I will not let him know. Your secret it safe with me.

The one word you cannot say to Nick Sirianni: I love football coaches.

I am picturing some poor Starbucks barista working the drive-thru in Cherry Hill, double-checking and wanting to make sure they get the drink order right. After all, it’s 5 a.m. and they are still a little groggy themselves. And when the barista asks the customer on the other end of their headset, “Can you repeat that?” the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles loses his mind on them.

Schwarber booed: Kyle did not exactly get a warm reception in Atlanta, #AsExpected.

Kyle is too easygoing to go the Full Utley and say, “Boo? F—- you.” But the opportunity was there, and I would have liked to have the set.

Schwarber blasts: Everyone, I cannot emphasize enough how much enjoyment I got out of how this whole thing played out. “Chef’s kiss” is not putting it strongly enough. Let me explain…

Kyle Schwarber went 0-2 with a walk during the actual game, a rather invisible performance for him. And it looked like the National League was going to win, in large part because Pete Alonso hit a three-run bomb.

Unfortunately for Pistol Pete, the American League rallied to tie the game after nine innings. That meant the game then ended in a “swing-off,” which is an attempt to right Bud Selig’s wrongs. An entertaining solution, if you ask me.

What is a swing-off, you may ask? Three players from each team, all of them get three home run derby swings against batting practice pitching. Just three of them. The team with the most bombs wins.

And the National League won, primarily because Kyle homered three times on three swings. His teammates chanted “MVP!” after the game, and guess what? Despite doing very little during the actual game, Kyle got the actual MVP award! Derek Jeter gave him a glass bat and everything. In doing so, Schwarber became the first Phillie to win All-Star MVP since Johnny Callison in 1964.

The scene was ridiculous, but also, good for Schwarbs. Three homers on three swings with that much pressure is very impressive. And I am sorry, it is deeply funny how Schwarber got this award over Alonso.

Dave Roberts even put Alonso third in the swing-off order! If he hit the last homer, as you would have thought it would go, Alonso would have won MVP. But because Tampa Bay’s Jonathan Aranda put up a goose-egg in the final round, Alonso did not get to bat… and they gave the MVP to Schwarber! Think about it: Pete Alonso lives for things like All-Star MVPs and home run derbies. Kyle Schwarber, on the other hand, literally could not care less. But Schwarber won the MVP over Alonso, because of three batting practice nukes.

Mets fans were (rightfully) mad.

The responses to that tweet are unbelievable. It is just Phillies fans responding, “You forgot three homers” and “Schwarber went 3-5 with three homers.” Jonathan Aranda, you beaut, thank you for your service.

Clayton Kershaw mic’d up while pitching was also pretty cool.

VJ’s back! It was initially a rough return-to-action for Mr. Edgecombe, who looked like a guy who had not played in nine days and was nursing some sort of hand/wrist injury. He went scoreless in the first half, and while I am not trying to apologize too much for an 0-7 performance from the field, VJ got absolutely HAMMERED on a drive and 3-point attempt that were not called. Summer league refs, man.

But then VJ settled in during the second half. He finished with 15 points (4-14 FG, 6-6 FT), 6 boards and 4 assists. Kyle has his observations here.

We saw some of VJ’s areas for improvement, too. He often needs to take another dribble on a bunch of drives, because he jumps from too far away. But that is OK, I thought this was a resilient effort from him on a night when his jumper was not there.

I always thought these next two days were perhaps the most sports-less dates on the entire calendar. The home run derby and All-Star Game are over, two days until the Phils get going again, and Eagles training camp has not started up yet. Time to watch a movie or something.

I think that would certainly be a good move — Sinners is on HBO Max, I might have to give that one a whirl — but there are some sports on: Summer Sixers against Summer Mavs in Sin City (8:00 p.m., ESPN), plus the first-place Union are at home against last-place CF Montréal (7:30 p.m., Apple TV+). Gotta beat ‘em down.

But you should listen to your favorite PHLY shows, because hey, that is what a lot of you do during the day anyway.

Your tentative Wednesday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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