On Monday, we looked at 10 things we’re looking forward to over the next 12 months. But what about beyond that? Who will be the first team in the city to win a championship? Will it be a dynasty? Let’s set our sights a little bit lower and see what realistic marks the teams in this city can hit, and who will hit them first.

Win a Playoff Series

The Phillies are probably three to four years away. The Sixers could make the playoffs next season, but they likely won’t win a series. The Eagles are the common sense answer. But the Flyers don’t follow common sense. This is a franchise that, not too long ago, went to the Stanley Cup Finals with 88 points after winning 50% of their games. Missing the playoffs this year would make it only the fourth time they’ve done that since 1994. On the randomness of hockey alone, the Flyers take this one.

Team: Flyers
Year: 2018

Have an MVP

We have Carson Wentz to hang our hopes on, and the Phillies could see Odubel Herrera or Maikel Franco develop into a legit MVP candidate (and they’ll have better odds if they buy one). But the Sixers are the lead horse in this race. Joel Embiid – if healthy™ has the best chance of anyone in the whole city. Ben Simmons is right behind him, and whoever the hell they pick this year will also be right up there, too. The season after next will be Embiid’s first real shot at MVP. He’ll be 25. That’s the same age Kevin Durant and Allen Iverson were when they won (and Tim Duncan when he got his first). It’s doable.

Team: Sixers, namely Joel Embiid
Year: 2019

Be Run out of Town by an Angry Mob

Congratulations on winning two in a row, Sixers! There is really no competition on this one. The Sixers’ front office has been poking and prodding the fans for seasons now, and it’ll all come to a head one day when Jerry Colangelo himself is seen on the concourse taking giveaway items from actual children and screaming that they didn’t use the proper ticket code.

Team: Sixers ownership
Year: Any day now, really

Move to a New Arena/Stadium

Wow, three in a row guys, congrats! The Phils aren’t going anywhere for the next 20 years. The Eagles for at least 15. Comcast will figure out a way to have the public finance a new state-of-the-art yada yada yada Flyers home. The Sixers, I’m sure, are scouting land with good infrastructure around it in South Jersey as we speak, all while a team of lawyers works on getting them out of their lease with Comcast, which I assume will be nullified when Brian Roberts decides to put a pro ice rink inside Comcast Tower The Ocho, coming in three years.

Team: Sixers
Year: 2021

Change their Uniforms

It’ll be the Eagles returning to Kelly Green. The Phillies’ logo is so defined, standard, and non-threatening that I don’t think it’ll ever change. The Flyers will never change. Ever. Ever. Ever. Minor tweaks, sure. But that logo and those colors are staying. The Sixers just got new unis. So that leaves the Eagles, probably the only team whose uniforms don’t illicit a consensus “they’re good” from the city. Some people really like them. Some people think they’re dumb because midnight green isn’t a real color and it’s barely green and it makes no sense. It won’t be soon, but it’ll change.

Kyle: The Eagles hear us loud and clear on this, but Jeffrey Lurie truly has no intention of changing anytime soon.

Team: Eagles
Year: 2021

Have a Player be Arrested

We’ll rule the Phillies out immediately because the last dude I can think that really broke the law became a country singer. The Flyers are generally law-abiding. The Sixers could run into some issues with Ben Simmons having actual cheetahs in his condo, and I have visions of him being arrested for animal smuggling and yelling, “I JUST WANTED TO RAISE THE CAT.” But realistically, it’s gonna be an Eagle. It’ll be minor, but it’ll probably be this year. Probably before camp even starts. It’s a numbers game.

Team: Eagles
Year: 2017

Make Non-Sports Headlines for Organizational Behavior

The Sixers had their fun with the whole Hinkie mess – and press for eSports doesn’t count, Scott. This one goes to John POWERS Middleton, who has 10 Executive Producer credits lined up from now through 2019. He’ll be interviewed. He may even win a damn Oscar. And he’ll be asked about the Phillies.

Team: Phillies
Year: 2018

Make Non-Sports Headlines for Fan Behavior

Pistachio Girl. Yea, she is more of a former employee (of Aramark) than a fan, and I don’t think whatever she does to make headlines will be at a Phillies game, but it’ll happen. And it’ll be bad. And the Phillies will be mentioned. In only a couple of months she went from “it’s bullshit Aramark fired me for my political beliefs” to, well, this:

david duke

And that’s not even the worst of it.

Team: Phillies, specifically Pistachio Girl
Year: Two months, tops

Change Their Name

The Phils tried it once in the ’40s, kinda,  and everybody hated it. None of these teams, in this city, has ever been called anything else (the Phils are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports). Together, that’s a combined 322 years of Flyers, Phillies, Sixers, and Eagles. But if one of them was going to change, it’d be the 76ers, after Russia takes over or we find out in like 20 years that all of the Founding Fathers were serial killers. Or when Joshua Harris decides to name them after an online gambling startup.

Team: Sixers
Year: 2026