Trying to make sense of the Eagles’ latest plan
The most ingenious plan in the history of marketing is coming to yet another Pattison Ave. address.
Seems the Eagles, like the Sixers, are about to convince their customers that being a good team is somehow an annoyance.
This, the other day, from Howie Roseman: “I think when you go back and look at 2008 when we were in the NFC championship game, and 2009 and 2010, 10-6 isn’t good enough to get home-field advantage, to compete for a championship. It’s a huge edge to have that bye. So we have to build the team with that in mind. I think some of the things that we’ve done over the past few years have been to get to 10-6 and that’s not good enough.”
He has a 7-9 team … but a 10-6 team would be an inconvenience. Beautiful.
Roseman can’t be blamed. The Birds’ vice president of football operations has seen the success the Sixers have had at brainwashing a generation of fans raised to believe that there is disgrace in losing in the playoffs. He had to notice how they convinced paying customers that losing 60 games now is preferable to losing four games later. Even this season, with a wickedly awful record, the Sixers have inspired their fans to regularly chant, “Trust the Process.”
So why should the Eagles be in any rush to inconvenience people with a playoff team when building a 14-2 Super Bowl favorite is the better idea … however long that takes?
*** All right, already. Here it is: The sometimes annual, made-for-ridicule, print-news standard list of what is in, what is out, what is hot and what is not for Philadelphia sports in 2017. Hot: Joel Embiid. Not: Jahlil Okafor. Now: Jerad Eickhoff. Then: Aaron Nola. Rising: Jordan Hicks. Falling: Connor Barwin.
Trending: Throwing writers out of a press box. Bending: Owners being available to answer questions. *** When it happened the first time, it was reasonable to excuse the Sixers in the spirit of sports science. Now that it is happening again, the greater plan is obvious.
More than anything — even more than winning basketball games — the Sixers are desperate to expand the value of their brand.
The first blast of that suspicion came when they faced an early-season choice of which of the back-to-back games the everprotected Joel Embiid would play. When they elected not to use him against Washington at home, where the fans have grown to appreciate his excellence, and instead play him the next night in Minnesota, there seemed little mystery. The Minnesota game was on national TV, giving Embiid a chance to match up against Karl-Anthony Towns … and giving the Sixers more international panache.
At that time, they were able to babble their way through some cockamamie explanation, even when there were 30,000 raised eyebrows in the Wells Fargo Center. But their blatant self-serving disrespect for all holy basketball things was exposed this week when they began a campaign to have Embiid elected to play in the All-Star Game. What? They rest him whenever they can. In the games he does play, the sports-science department insists he should be benched for at least 20 minutes. And now the Sixers want him to travel to New Orleans and run around in an empty-calorie exhibition game? They are terrified that Embiid may add to his fat injury file in a meaningful game against the Wizards, but don’t mind that he gives it his best for those good, old Eastern Conference All-Stars.
As usual, Brett Brown is being made to concoct a reasonable explanation. The best he could come up with was that having Embiid spend a weekend with basketball’s illuminati would provide untold benefits. And maybe it would. But the Sixers forfeit that option every time they remove him from a for-keeps game before he dares play his 29th minute. That’s unless they have something more valuable in mind … like raising the visibility, and the ultimate value, of their franchise.
*** Yes: Ersan Ilyasova. No: Nerlens Noel. In: Fake news. Out: Fake grass.
Yes: T.J. McConnell. No: Sergio Rodriguez. Here: Cameron Rupp. Gone: Darin Ruf. Working: Wayne Simmonds. Lurking: Ben Simmons.
Winners: Philadelphia Soul. Losers: Philadelphia Eagles.
*** The flaw in the rapid growth of interest in ultimate fighting is best revealed by the nonsense that had been Ronda Rousey.
Talented enough, the judo-trained bantamweight was granted an immediate rise to worldwide stardom. It took her about 10 fights. That’s when her pay-per-view prices exploded, when mainstream cable TV granted her fame on the level of Tiger Woods, when she became one of sports’ appointed Beautiful People. Ten fights. Ten of them. And by the time she hit her 13th fight, she was exposed as a virtual heavy bag. By her 14th, she didn’t make it through 49 seconds before being knocked out.
Boxers need 20, 30, 40 fights before being taken so seriously. Why? Because that sport has a century-plus of history, of credibility, of context. If every boxer to go 10-0 wound up on the cover of a magazine, there wouldn’t be enough space on the newsstand rack. But ultimate fighting? It has been around about 25 years and has been widely popular for less than 20. So 10 great fights suddenly made somebody Sugar Ray Robinson.
Ultimate fighting brings people joy. Leave it at that for a while. Because it simply is not mature enough a sporting endeavor to lift the weight of assigned superstardom.
*** The Phillies, a little short on meaningful offseason baseball news, spent a whole day trumpeting a press conference to announce that there would be a big name performing in concert this summer at Citizens Bank Park. Turns out, it will be Billy Joel, who has appeared there three times already.
Put in context, the Sixers have had fewer Allen Iverson nights.
— Good thing college football has a national championship game coming up. After that 52-49 USC victory over Penn State in the Rose Bowl, at least fans can finally see some entertaining postseason football.
*** Soaring: Robert Covington’s defense. Snoring: Robert Covington’s offense.
Fun: Jason Sosa. Done: Bernard Hopkins.
Now: Freddy Galvis. Later: J.P. Crawford.