Flyers

Your Friday Mid-Day Roundup

By Jim Adair

Published: Jun 13th, 2014 · 12:38 PM EDT

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And now, here’s some stuff that fell by the wayside this week:

Homefront Gameplay Walkthrough

http://youtu.be/qyA8UGWgHn8

That post-Korean-invasion video game that will be set in an occupied Philadelphia released a gameplay walkthrough at E3 this week. There’s not much in the way of landmarks or Philly-isms in the video, but hey, the game looks pretty cool.

Jay Wright at #18

ESPN’s college basketball site has been ranking the top 50 coaches in college basketball, and Villanova’s Jay Wright landed at the number 18 spot. Here’s some of what Dana O’Neil — who used to cover Nova for the Daily News — had to say:

“‘The perception is he’s the handsome guy that wears the $5,000 suits,’ said Patrick Chambers, the coach at Penn State who spent five years as Wright’s assistant coach at Villanova. ‘But so many people are out there trying to impress other coaches with how smart they are and what they do. Jay isn’t into any of that. He’s so comfortable in his own skin.’

Some of that comes with time. Wright has been at this head-coaching gig now for 19 years, the last 12 at Villanova. He knows the game, as in basketball, and he knows The Game, as in the business of basketball.

But so much of his talent is innate. In his first year at Villanova, he attracted a highly skilled recruiting class and most everyone expected immediate results. Immediate instead took a backseat to two painful years in the NIT. Yet when everyone — including those who now count themselves as die-hard, lifelong fans — wanted Wright out for lack of production, he didn’t blink.”

Report on the Katz Crash

The NTSB report on the plane crash that killed Lewis Katz and others has been released, and among its findings — according to the Inquirer — is that pilot error may be to blame:

“Flight data recorders found no evidence that the two pilots performed a preflight check. Apparently they didn’t realize that the Gulfstream jet’s tail flaps, known as elevators, were locked when it tried to takeoff from Hanscom field outside Boston on May 31, the report indicated.”

The Central Bucks Browns

As the Cleveland Browns hope to finally actually begin to rebuild, around one so-called Mr. Football, it’s worth pointing out the many of the minds behind Cleveland’s on-field product are local guys. New head coach Mike Pettine and his defensive coordinator and linebackers coach all played at Doylestown’s CB West under the coaching guidance of Pettine’s father. A Cleveland.com piece follows Pettine back to Doylestown and also gives you an insight into the new head honcho of the Browns’ sartorial inclinations:

“Dressed in a Foo Fighters T-shirt and a pair of camo shorts, Pettine enjoyed his respite from trying to turn around one of the NFL’s perennial losers. He stood around a high-top table, watching the Belmont, sipping on a beer and accepting a few man hugs from locals who marvel at his transformation from high school coach to low-level NFL assistant to Browns head coach.

What made the two-day trip special was the toggling between past and present. Pettine brought members of the Browns coaching staff on a limousine bus across the width of Pennsylvania to work an annual youth football clinic run by Browns defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil. Pettine, O’Neil and linebackers coach Chuck Driesbach all played at CB West in different decades under Mike Pettine Sr.”

Long Fly Balls

According to the estimations and calculations of ESPN’s Mark Simon, the Phillies outfield is one of the worst in baseball when it comes to catching balls hit to the deepest parts of the park. They rank 24th in making outs on balls hit 350-ish+ feet in the air. File this under “least surprising news of the week.”

Loyalty

Gregory Kaminski at Maass Media took a look at fan loyalty in Philadelphia, factoring in attendance of the Phillies and Flyers — discounting the Eagles because of their small sample size and the Sixers because oh boy they’ve been terrible — and figured out what we already knew: Philly fans are loyal. Kaminsky discovered both the Phillies and Flyers, over the past eight years, have attendance numbers above the league average. Kaminsky says:

“So does this data prove anything? I’m not really sure, but it does help to move the conversation forward and give us sports fans something to talk and debate about. And isn’t that all we really want anyway?”

We disagree, what it tells us is holy shit the MLB has terrible league-wide attendance numbers.

Giving You The Peacock

And finally, up in New York, 30 Rockefeller Plaza (aka the G.E. Building and the RCA Building before that) will soon wear the brand of Comcast, a small regional company. According to PhillyMag, 30 Rock will soon sport “big, glowing neon lights that will shout ‘COMCAST’ to the Big Apple sky.” It’s a way for Comcast to flaunt their power over New York, but this is also a great time to point out the our own Comcast Tower has no large signage denoting it as such, and we’re 100% on board with that.