Gotta be honest – I thought Brent did retire after leaving the Eagles organization as a Super Bowl champion.
Apparently not, though he told Jason Martinez and Harry Mayes on 97.5 The Fanatic today that he’s had some offers but is closer to retirement than jumping in with another team:
"I think I'm leaning more toward retirement. I've had a few offers, but none of them are worth leaving a city that I have been in for 11 years where I won the Super Bowl in my final year. It wouldn't feel right to put another uniform on." – @BrentCelek in studio with @975Middays pic.twitter.com/pkhqkbd81t
— 975TheFanatic (@975TheFanatic) August 17, 2018
My take:
Brent should retire. Go out on top as a Super Bowl champion. Finish your career as a one-team guy. Put a bow on a fantastic run and don’t junk it up with one or two years as a backup tight end with the 49ers or Browns or Ravens or whatever.
For what it’s worth, he did put the kibosh on signing with the Cowboys, who need a tight end. Celek said he wouldn’t sign in Dallas even if they offered him ten million dollars.
He was in-studio with the pair for an entire hour today and you can listen to that here:
There’s a tweet that I read this morning. Kevin mentioned it in his Eagles story. And here’s the thing–I know better, right? I know I shouldn’t take the bait on this tweet, but I can’t help myself. I can’t help myself because I know this tweet doesn’t represent the misguided views of just one man, it represents the views of many. Here is the tweet in all of its dumbassery:
I am embarrassed to be a Philadelphia sports fan today. Mets 24, Phillies 4. Patriots 37, Eagles 20. Gabe Kapler made a mockery of baseball by using by Quinn and Kingery as pitchers. Pederson did not have his team ready to play. Disgraceful.
— Angelo Cataldi (@AngeloCataldi) August 17, 2018
The Phillies put on an embarrassing display in the first game of yesterday’s double-header against the Mets. It was a terrible brand of baseball and a concerning effort by a team that is in the thick of a playoff hunt. Their play was sloppy, lethargic, and miserable to watch. It was most certainly not playoff quality baseball. Perhaps you could even call what happened through the game’s first five innings, to borrow a term from Cataldi, “a mockery of baseball.” I subjected myself to the misery once more by cutting up this “highlight” package of yesterday’s bonerfest, so that you can come up with your own descriptions of what transpired over the course of a game in which the Mets scored 10 unearned runs. It will be like Mad Libs:
Forget Kapler using position players, the focus should be on what led up to that point. pic.twitter.com/tnL4d5wc9L
— BWanksCB (@BWCrossingBroad) August 17, 2018
A mockery, an embarrassment, a ________. What say you?
But the gripe of Cataldi, and the many I heard on the radio and read online throughout much of today, isn’t with the shit show that was Ranger Suarez and the Phillies’ deficient defense, it is with Gabe Kapler. Because of course it is. Why? Because he took a good old fashioned ass beating and turned it into a historic loss by handing the ball to Roman Quinn and then to Scott Kingery.
It did not go well:
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Welp:
The #Seahawks cut former #Eagles first-round DE Marcus Smith, who has been out of practice for a couple days while dealing with a personal issue.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 17, 2018
The Seahawks have cut DE Marcus Smith, who entered the league as a first round pick with the Eagles in 2014.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 17, 2018
Seahawks people are calling it a “surprise” move:
Imagine living in the Midwest. You have tornadoes and your state is irrelevant until a presidential election. You’re on the West Coast. Enjoy the earthquakes. The South? Hurricanes and bugs the size of cats.
While coming to grips with your grim reality, you say to yourself, “Man. I wish I had a cheesesteak from (insert preferred cheesesteak place name here) right about now.” You wander over to your computer and stumble across a food purveyor called Goldbely. This company will ship the local fusion of steak and cheese upon a bun from either Pat’s, Jim’s (62nd St.), or Tony Luke’s. How much would you be willing to spend?
I don’t hate Pat’s. I don’t hate Tony Luke’s. I quite like Jim’s on South Street, but I’ve never tried the 62nd street location. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out who is so desperate for a whiz wit that they’d fork out $99 for 4 cheesesteaks. If you’re reading this in complete befuddlement, let me assure you this is real:
We ship Nationwide! All 48 States😋@patskingofsteaks @goldbely pic.twitter.com/GVHNRj2Jbh
— Pat's King of Steaks (@PatsSteaks) August 14, 2018
You might know her as the former Duke standout who played nine WNBA seasons with six different teams. She also had playing stints in Russia, Turkey, and Lithuania, plus a run with the Belarus national team.
Harding was the number one overall pick in the 2007 draft and now becomes the second WNBA player to receive a full-time scouting gig with an NBA team, the first of which went to Dallas Mavericks assistant Jenny Boucek, who scouted for the Seattle SuperSonics in 2006.
According to ESPN, Harding retired in 2017 and spent last season in the NBA’s “Basketball Operations Associates Program.” –
After completing the program, she interviewed with several NBA teams, looking for a role that would allow her to learn and grow as both a future front-office executive and maintain a connection to coaching.
“I knew I wanted to work with the team. That’s the one thing that you miss most from playing — being part of a team, competing, and trying to win a championship,” she said. “That’s always been the goal probably since I picked up the ball when I was 13.”
The Sixers currently have eight scouts on the payroll. Marin Sedlacek is the team’s “international scout,” while Alvin Williams and Jordan Cohn are listed as “pro personnel” scouts. We’ll see what Harding’s focus ends up being in the scouting department.
Brett Brown is also quoted in the article:
The original title of this story was “Not Great,” and that’s still probably the biggest takeaway from last night. That performance was… not great.
But I went with”Nate Studfeld” instead because I want to be positive as we head into a summer weekend. I didn’t want to start off your Friday morning with some ridiculous shit take like this one:
I am embarrassed to be a Philadelphia sports fan today. Mets 24, Phillies 4. Patriots 37, Eagles 20. Gabe Kapler made a mockery of baseball by using by Quinn and Kingery as pitchers. Pederson did not have his team ready to play. Disgraceful.
— Angelo Cataldi (@AngeloCataldi) August 17, 2018
You’re right, Angelo, it’s disgraceful.
Anyway, Nick Foles did not have it last night. He hurt his shoulder on – ironically – a strip sack against the Patriots. He says he’s fine but you never know with this team. A laundry list of players were inactive and/or injured last night and didn’t sniff the field.
They were:
Carson Wentz, Alshon Jeffery, Jason Peters, Brandon Graham, Jalen Mills, Darren Sproles, Mack Hollins, Nelson Agholor, Chris Maragos, Donnel Pumphrey, Asantay Brown, Tim Jernigan, Markus Wheaton, Josh Adams
Add Foles, Bryce Treggs, Kamar Aiken, and Richard Rodgers to the list, four guys who left the game with various new injuries.
RE: the shoulder, here’s what Foles had to say about it:
“I was getting ready to throw a deep ball and it got grabbed as I was following on through, so it sort of got a little strained,” Foles told reporters after the game. “So, you know, I was with the trainers, I’ll go in tomorrow and get treatment on it and sort of go from there. But it feels all right, feels pretty good. Hopefully, there are no issues.”
Yeah, hopefully there are no issues, because Carson Wentz is already on the shelf and hasn’t done an 11v11 drill this entire summer. We’re less than three weeks from the season opener. Anybody getting just a little bit worried?
The positive is that Nate Sudfeld looks like a player, which I’ll get to momentarily, but first some random notes that didn’t fit into the other sections:
- Kamu Grugier-Hill played WILL with the 1st team defense
- Rasul Douglas started at CB in place of Mills and Sidney Jones began in the slot. In the second half, Jones played on the outside a bit with Avonte Maddox in the slot. Jones whiffed badly on a flat pass that the Pats took in for a touchdown:
Somebody check in on Sidney Jones ankles for us? Thankspic.twitter.com/xu1F3JcVtI
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 17, 2018
- Matt Jones made his preseason debut in the second half and dropped three passes, including one that hit him in the helmet and bounced into the hands of a New England player. Yeah, the ball was a bit high and behind him, but he’s gotta find a way to adjust and at least make an effort on that play.
- Big V – not a great night at left tackle
- Ronald Darby could/should have had two picks on the same drive (well the first would have ended the drive, but you get the point), great coverage downfield though
- Steven Means should be on somebody’s 53-man roster
- Rashard Davis lost 11 yards on a punt return. Appreciate him trying to make something happen, but yeah. He returned the next punt for -3 yards. The gunners helped him out on a much better 4th quarter return.
- Michael Bennett’s shoulder pads make me laugh for whatever reason
- Jake Elliott missed another extra point
- I didn’t get a great look at the offensive and defense lines other than seeing Big V’s big troubles. The O-line didn’t get much goal line push on several Wendell Smallwood runs and gave up five first half sacks.
- Godspeed to the Pats corner that committed three first-half penalties. I’m surprised hoodie didn’t cut him at halftime.
More observations:
The Eagles and Phillies played two ugly games yesterday and lost both of them. But the Phils did win the second half of their double-header to break even on the day.
Let’s start with the Birds, who fell to the Patriots 37-20. Despite not having three of their top receivers, the first team offense led by Nick Foles got torched for the most part. And so did the defense. Foles went 3/9 for 44 yards and fumbled on the last play of his night as he suffered a shoulder sprain on that very play.
But there were some bright spots. Shelton Gibson looked like he could secure a roster spot as one of the five or six wide receivers. Not only did he make plays on offense, but he also had a nice kick return in the first quarter. Dave Fipp loves that stuff.
Despite giving up a touchdown on the first drive, Avonte Maddox got first-team reps as the nickel corner and did a pretty good job. Also, Sidney Jones whiffed against Cordarrelle Patterson and Matt Jones couldn’t catch.
Since it’ll be a topic for the rest of the season elsewhere in the league, Malcolm Jenkins, De’Vante Bausby, and Michael Bennett all stayed inside during the national anthem. Bennett was in the locker room while the first two were in the tunnel.
Malcolm Jenkins and DeVante Bausby stayed in tunnel for national anthem
Michael Bennett was in lockeroom#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/6RCt0tQElS
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) August 16, 2018
On the bright side, we had this:
