👋 Good morning! Kelee, the ball is this way!

You know what, let’s talk about the resting decision in this top section.

I am not gonna pretend that I was against how the Eagles treated yesterday’s game. Well, outside of Bo’s cause célèbre, keeping AJ Dillon on the roster for two measly snaps when you so clearly needed an extra body on the defensive line. First The Positivity Bunny and now this?!?! By the end of that game, poor Ty Robinson looked like he was moving in cement. Not like Ty Robinson is usually moving all that fast, but that man was gassed in the fourth quarter. So was the whole defense.

That is how I would have played it: Rest as many of the key starters as possible, get DeVonta Smith his 1,000 yards quickly and then get him out of there. I thought Deniz’s number-crunching made sense. I thought Nick Sirianni’s “I can’t guarantee the 2 seed, but I can guarantee a week off for my guys” explanation made sense. I thought the Eagles could have won the Commanders game with their backups all week, and frankly I still think that. Hand the ball to Tank, and maybe they would have.

And I do think the extra rest, while unquantifiable, is potentially a huge deal here. This offensive line, which has been unable to run block all season, sure needed it. This defense, which is dominant in every situation except when the Eagles’ A Win Is A Win Offense goes three-and-out five times in a row and forces them to play a million snaps, sure could use it. Take a look at San Francisco, this week’s opponent. They just played two wars and got physically manhandled by Seattle in the second of those games. Now the Niners have to travel cross-country and play the rested Eagles. I feel OK about that part, at the very least.

All that said, the results are the results. This is not my personal worst-case scenario — Eagles playing their starters and the Bears winning was my worst-case scenario — but it certainly does not feel good. Plenty of people disagreed with the decision to rest before the game even started. I cannot argue with any of them.

And that is for obvious reasons. I would much rather play banged-up Green Bay with a guaranteed second home game if you win than San Francisco and potentially having to go to Soldier Field in two weeks. Is the current scenario more than doable? Of course, the disjointed Eagles still doubled up the Bears in point differential on the season! But I think we all would much prefer Round 2 at The Linc.

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I am not gonna break this game down in great detail gang, because what is the point? We’re on to San Francisco.

(If I had a newsletter for you last Monday — Nick Sirianni’s tunnel video, the dominant defensive line, La Salle College High School’s Sean McDermott completely botching the two-point decision, 17 yards in the second half — oh baby, it might have been a 5,000-word newsy. At least 1,000 of those would have been dedicated to Dallas Goedert’s two terrible fullback reps. Performance art.)

(EJ’s piece is live on the site, too.)

That said, three quick things:

(1) Tanner McKee was… kinda bad? First big winner of the day: Jalen Hurts. Tough day for The Mormon Missile. Happens to all of the greats. Shake it off, kid.

McKee went 21-41 for 241 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Some lowlights:

It just was not very good, which is a new development from the Tanimal. He has mostly been sharp in game action, albeit in preseason and low-stakes football. This was his first chance at a game that mattered and he struggled, even if he was playing with second stringers. This offseason is the last year of McKee’s rookie deal, and from the Eagles’ perspective, the ideal time to trade him. But I wonder if this performance maybe sees that trade value take a hit. We can talk about that another day.

(2) Darius Cooper penalty: Second week in a row that one of our hosts’ favorite players made a killer mistake, after EJ’s boy Cam Latu completely messed up Braden Mann’s dart in Buffalo.

In the first half, Cooper made a nice catch that got the Eagles inside the 5-yard line. Nice play. But it got wiped off the board when Cooper earned a taunting penalty for spinning the ball in the defender’s direction. I do not like the NFL’s taunting rules one bit, but they do exist and a rookie cannot be getting a penalty there. McKee threw the pick a few plays later.

(3) Oof, those backup corners: The second big winner of the day: Adoree’ Jackson.

The Eagles had nine penalties for 123 yards, and the lion’s share of those were pass interference calls on deep balls. Washington had Scary Terry and Deebo playing, and the Eagles’ backup corners (Kelee Ringo, Jakorian Bennett, Mac McWilliams) just could not get their heads around on deep balls. Tough stuff.

Oh well, Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are back next week.

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Initial San Francisco thoughts: Same time slot as last year, 4:30 p.m. on Sundee.

Fran offered his thoughts here, and it’s very much one of those “strength against strength, weakness against weakness” matchups. I am excited to see the chess match between Vic Fangio and Kyle Shanahan. We will have all week to talk about that one. Brock Purdy is not as good as some people in the Bay Area media make him out to be, but I unfortunately do believe he is a pretty good starting quarterback. Nice season for Purdy with limited weaponry compared to a few seasons back, albeit against an incredibly easy schedule.

This 49ers defense is super banged-up, vanilla and not very good. Bryce Huff is playing more snaps for this team than he has at any point in his career! Chicago just went up and down the field against them. Seattle just completely bullied them. Last year’s Eagles would put a 40-spot up against these guys.

This year’s Eagles? Well, let’s hope that rest paid off.

Jalyx Hunt: Shoutout to The Cornell Comet, who led the team in sacks and picks. What a cool player, physical enough to hold up in the NFL and a versatile chess piece that Uncle Vic can deploy in a million different ways.

Great interception by Hunt yesterday. I always say it: When you go up against Coach Flinn’s receivers in Ivy League play, Josh Johnson is a walk in the park.

⛄⛸️🎄 Ice Capades Wrap-Up, Part 1 ⛄⛸️🎄

As someone who covered the NBA for a while, a few teams have well-known road trips each season because their home arena is used for something else for a few weeks. The San Antonio Spurs go away for two weeks because the rodeo is in town. The two Los Angeles teams (three, because the Kings play there as well) would go away in February because the Grammys are at Staples Center or whatever it’s called now.

By now, all of us in Philadelphia know when the Flyers’ and Sixers’ one consistent long road trip will fall on the calendar: the very last week on the calendar, the week after Christmas, when Disney on Ice takes over Xfinity Mobile Arena. Thus, I have taken to calling this annual jaunt “The Ice Capades Road Trip.” Shoutout to Brian, who originally coined that title.

Just like their co-tenants, the Flyers mixed in a couple of duds at the start of their trip but closed out on a high note.

Flyers 5, Edmonton 2: Get blitzed by low-level teams like Seattle and Calgary and then beat the two-time reigning Western Conference champs to close it out. Sure, why not? The post-game pod is here.

The play that swung this game, as well as the coolest moment of the game, was the Flyers’ first goal to make the score 1-0. Denver Barkey’s first career goal, specifically.

And it was scored in the most Denver Barkey way possible. Charlie has mentioned that Barkey’s motor is his elite NHL skill and you saw it on the goal. Barkey started the breakout from behind the Flyers’ net and makes a clean zone exit, blasts through the middle of the zone with speed (catching the Oilers flat-footed in the process), drives the middle of the ice and scores on a nifty feed from Owen Tippett. A true 200-foot play. That’s Denver Barkey for you. Woof woof. 🐶🐶🐶🐶

Barkey, Tippett and Sean Couturier’s line basically put Leon Draisaitl in prison. It sure seems like the kid needs to stay up. At this time last year, Barkey was the Ralph Cox of Canada’s World Juniors roster, a late cut. Now, he very much looks like an NHLer.

The Canadians fared terribly in last year’s competition, but they did better this year. Speaking of that…

World Juniors Update: Canada lost in the semis last night. Tomorrow will be a national day of mourning north of the border, because they really care about this little tourney. That is three years in a row without the gold for Canada. The horror!

I will wait for Charlie and Alex to give us the full rundown of how everyone fared in the next prospect rankings, but three guys I did see…

⛄⛸️🎄 Ice Capades Wrap-Up, Part 2 ⛄⛸️🎄

I am enjoying the symmetry between the Flyers’ and Sixers’ seasons so far:

The Sixers started the Ice Capades trip with perhaps their worst three-game stretch (OK, one of those games was in Philly) of the season. They then followed it up with one of their best three-game stretches of the season. That’s basketball, Suzyn.

VJ Maxx: The Sixers’ second win in Madison Square Garden in a few weeks felt extra sweet. I do not want to read too much into a few games, because the Knicks are a good team and the Sixers will go through their cold stretches as well. But at the risk of saying something stupid, it feels like the vibes of this rivalry have changed a bit.

It starts with the off-court stuff. You have Wally Szczerbiak complaining about Joel Embiid’s dramatics and foul-baiting, when the Knicks have the NBA’s preeminent grifter playing point guard. Have some self-awareness! These comments came on the heels of Walt Frazier telling Tyrese Maxey that he better get used to playing on losing teams back in the preseason.

Well Clyde, Maxey has scored 30 points in his last six games at Madison Square Garden. Tyrese went for 36 points on Saturday, on 14-22 shooting and 6-9 from beyond the arc. He is becoming their heir apparent to Reggie Miller as Preeminent Knicks Foil at The Garden. The player that Trae Young thinks he is.

Maxey has always brought it against the Knicks, but the addition of VJ Edgecombe is what primarily has me wondering if the Sixers can actually reverse how this matchup has gone the last last few years. After Edgecombe had a 23-point night in Dallas a short drive from his college (Baylor), he went for 26 in NYC a short drive from his high school (Long Island Lutheran). Maybe not a short drive, the LIE is pretty brutal, but you know what I mean.

Avert your eyes, Devon!

The last two seasons when these two teams played, the Knicks were the younger, tougher, more athletic and more durable team. How many back-breaking Josh Hart offensive rebounds can one fan base take? And while the Knicks are still a hellacious offensive rebounding team, while you watch VJ block Mikal Bridges 3-pointer and then go coast-to-coast for a dunk, it does not look like they are more athletic.

(Not VJ’s best block of the road trip, by the way. While levitating in the air like few players can, he blocked a layup twice in Dallas.)

In past years, Jalen Brunson was able to hide defensively on players like Nico Batum, Eric Gordon or even Kelly Oubre. But there is nowhere to hide when the Sixers run out a Maxey-Edgecombe-George-Barlow-Embiid starting lineup. Brunson realistically has to guard Edgecombe. Go back and watch Edgecombe’s four first-quarter buckets from Saturday:

Textbook “Hunt The Bozo” offense, as Kyle puts it. For small guards, so much of defense is just becoming adequate. And right now in that department, Maxey’s defense is worlds better than Brunson’s. As a result, the Sixers’ offense just felt so much easier than the Knicks’. Who knows if that translates in the future matchups, but a nice few days for the local basketball team nonetheless.

Improvement with “The Big Three”: It’s really “The Big Four” now with Edgecombe, but the record with all of Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and Paul George in the lineup was not great prior to this past week. And people laid a lot of the blame Embiid, which was mostly unfair.

Well, Embiid is averaging 28-8-4 over his last seven games, there is no minutes limit for him (or George, while we are at it) and the Sixers have won three in a row. Kyle is writing and Derek is podding about how well Embiid is moving.

I think the big lesson here is that, sometimes, things take time. Embiid was moving poorly at the beginning of the year, and the Maxey-Embiid-George trio looked clunky on offense at the beginning of the year. Both things have improved, and Maxey talked the other night about how they now know which plays to run. The big man even got the first dunk of his season on Saturday.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but things are looking up!

The Sixers are back home against Denver (8:30 p.m., Peacock) tonight. Yes, you read that start time correctly. Adam Silver, you will pay for your crimes. Nikola Jokic is injured for the first time in his career and the Nuggets are on the second half of a back-to-back, so this one kinda needs to be a win. A comfy one, preferably.

It’s also Black Monday in the NFL. I guess the good news this season is that the Eagles will not have to deal with coordinators interviewing during the playoffs… unless retread 67-year-old defensive coordinators become a hot option all the sudden (please no!) or there are some real Kevin Patullo fans out there somewhere.

Other than that, we will have Eagles second-guessing while looking ahead to San Francisco. And maybe this J.T. Realmuto standoff will come to an end? Regardless, I will get y’all caught up on the Phillies tomorrow. Not enough space to fit all of the Fightins developments today.

Your tentative Monday schedule at PHLY:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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