Both the Eagles and Flyers made significant moves this week that will set their course for the next half decade. Both moves, on their surface, are arguably in the teams’ favor, but there’s still plenty that can go wrong. We delve, looking at both sides of the rainbow.
Bright side:
Ah yes, a glimmer of sunshine bounces off the friendly end of nature’s creation squarely onto a joyous leprechaun who’s throwing gold coins around in a festive fashion. On the bright side, we find ourselves a 35-year-old Michael Vick wearing two Super Bowl rings in a sweet embrace with his now wife, Kijfa. He may have voided year six of his contract, but he’s earned $80 million from the Eagles, paid back his creditors, and used the additional $100 million in endorsements to buy every Tom, Dick, and Jamaal he’s ever come across a house.
Andy Reid is sitting fat and happy, no longer a Mormon, smoking Cubans and sipping Blue Label with a post-pubescent Howie Roseman. Their low-risk investment proved to be money well spent and paid more dividends than post millennium Johnson & Johnson. Vick played through all five years of his deal, performing at or near the level of the top five quarterbacks in the league and suffered only one minor concussion and a troublesome bout of bruised ribs. He’s healthy and will likely get another 2-3-year deal with a team in desperate need of a ready-to-play quarterback and a propensity to throw criminals behind the line- think Pittsburgh.
Just a few feet away, Paul Holmgren is feeding a now incapacitated Ed Snider a glass of high-end malbec through a straw. The weight of Snider’s third, fourth, and fifth Stanley Cup rings are too much for his aging hands to bear. Snider will leave behind half of his empire to Holmgren, who showed enough balls and crazy to trade the team’s cornerstone players to make way for a goalie and sizable (but reasonable) contracts to Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk, who turned into hockey’s version of Evan Longoria, signing a contract long before his peak and becoming the sport’s best value for five straight seasons. He won one Conn Smythe Trophy, and finished in the top ten in scoring three of the last five years. Brayden Schenn captained two of three Cup teams and has drawn comparisons to Steve Yzerman, Mark Messier, and a young Richards. Speaking of El Capitan, Richards peaked at age 24 and is a burden for the Kings. His buddy, Jeff Carter (remember him?), drank himself out of the lineup for the Columbus, the laughing stock of the league.
Combined with the Phillies' 2011 World Series victory, the city has seen six parades in five years.
The sun slowly slides beyond the horizon as another leprechaun rubs the feet of Kijfa Vick. It’s a beautiful sight.