Your Monday Morning Roundup
Photo credit: Jeffrey G. Pittenger-USA TODAY Sports
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The roundup:
So that happened and it wasn’t good.
Good news
The Eagles are 9-4 and their remaining three games are against teams they are substantially better than. They should win all three and finish 12-4. The Seahawks, in my opinion, remain their biggest competition for that second bye. In order:
1) Packers: They have it sewn up. They finish the season against the Falcons, Bills, Bucs and Lions. Chances are they don’t even need that Lions game in Week 17 to get their home field advantage.
2) Seahawks: They finish against 49ers, Cardinals and the hot-dangerous Rams.* There’s no way they don’t lose at least one of those games, which means that if the Eagles win-out, they should get the second bye. This is a totally reasonable, if not expected, scenario. Yeah, Kyle, but what if the Seahawks lose to the 10-3 Cardinals?
3) Cardinals: The Cardinals are done. They’ve managed 38 points in their last three games combined, going 1-2 after barely beating the middling Chiefs yesterday. Drew Stanton is terrible and the Cardinals’ defense isn’t good enough to carry them. They lose two of their last three and finish with five losses.
4) Lions: Stop it. [Just cross your fingers that the Packers have to play in Week 17.]
See? 12-4 is totally doable, and I think it nets the Eagles a bye. Worst case, they wind up with 11 or 12 wins and a home playoff game against a team they’re better than. The sky has not, as of yet, fallen.
Bad news
A clear pecking order has been established in the NFC. Seeding aside, you can no longer argue that the Eagles are one of the elite teams. 0-4 against the 49ers, Cardinals, Packers and Seahawks slots the Birds somewhere below the elite line in the conference and league. I think they’re better than the 49ers and Cardinals and would’ve won those games at home… but you can’t argue with results. The Eagles are a rung down the ladder and something has to change if they want to be true Super Bowl contenders. And today, all the pundits have lined up to point that out. Example: Mike Sielski’s Kelly’s Elite Team is Not Quite Ready to Be Elite.
UPDATE:
They’re not going to lose.
Mark Sanchez
The pass to Cooper that was intercepted was his one hilarious throw per game. Can we get him mulligans or something? He needs just one per.
Riley Cooper
Regardless of whose fault that interception was, there was no excuse for Coop to throw archnemesis Sanchez under the bus. Coop stinks and he’s done nothing to justify his five-year, $22 million contract. I mean look at this, he started being an asshole before he even got off the field:
He’s not fixing his face mask, he’s eyeing someone (Sanchez) and doing that look at me thing, pointing to his eyes.
It does not.
All dem notables
From left to right: Best golfer in the world, Windmill Jeff, Upton’s fuck buddy, <3 <3 <3
Oh and Carrot Top. Carrot Top – friend of Jon Dorenbos (magic-comedy circuit, I presume) – was there, too:
Photo: Cindy Webster, WIP
And here he is before the game at Rouge, where he presumably ate one of their overrated cheeseburgers:
pic via reader Doug
Are we allowed to talk about how C-Top looks like a lesbian, or is that just understood at this point?
Hagrid
I had to look up what the F this was because I’m not a Harry Potter guy, but does anyone know why the Eagles have a Hagrid figurine on the sidelines? I need to know the backstory to this and I need it now:
pic via (@TomFail41)
Fouls
As someone who owns multiple Snuggies and a Forever Lazy, I have to agree this is an 11. Shame– it would’ve been a 12 with footies. But the Mummer to his left with the knockoff McCoy jersey and green and silver camo pants need to reevaluate his life.
Dude, this is like when your parents bought you an off-brand Starter jacket or LA Gear Pumps because they figured you wouldn’t notice the difference between the real thing and a shitty knockoff that was going to get you beat up (I NOTICED, MOM! I NOTICED!). This guy, I’m not so sure he noticed.
Big balls
pic via (@overtheline89)
Chip going for it on fourth down? Yeah, those were big. But Jeff Fisher, coach of best bad team in the league, had bigger ones. From ESPN, via (@Banditmax):
The St. Louis Rams had a little different look during the pregame coin toss of Sunday’s 24-0 win against the Washington Redskins.
Receiver Stedman Bailey, cornerback Janoris Jenkins, defensive tackle Michael Brockers, running back Zac Stacy, left tackle Greg Robinson and linebacker Alec Ogletree represented the team as coin toss captains.
It’s not unusual for Rams coach Jeff Fisher to change up his game day captains but this particular group offered a common tie specific to the team’s visit to the nation’s capital.
Those six players are the six on the team’s active roster acquired with picks from the team’s trade (and subsequent trades with other teams) with Washington in 2012. That, of course, was the trade that netted Washington the No. 2 overall pick, which it used on quarterback Robert Griffin III.
The Rams won 24-0. They are 6-7.
*I’m telling you, I love this team! They beat the Seahawks, 49ers and Broncos, gave the Eagles a game, and have beaten the Raiders and Redskins by a combined score of 76-0 over the last two games, thus solidifying their place as the best bad team on Earth. They are so bad, yet so good. Fisher FTW… or, you know, seven losses.
Russell Wilson
Good day for him. Good weekend for him! First cheesesteaks at Steve’s…
… then the win against the Eagles… and then he stole Joseph Fauria’s hot WWE girlfriend:
This is her:
Brother?
pic via (@johnsonroda127)
These two people are the same… but guess which has bigger balls?
Block
Looks like Darren picked up a little something in Dallas. But Lou (Ed) is right– never do that again. We don’t want him getting hurt.
…
Jessica Alba stripping in front of a green screen. That is all.
I need this blown up and in high-res. Somebody make that happen.
Comcast thought last night’s game was the 2007 season’s Week 13 matchup, starring A.J. Feeley:
Pre-game bad omen:
As Eliot Shorr-Parks shows with diagrams, Mark Sanchez’s throw to Riley Cooper wasn’t a great pass, but Cooper didn’t run the best route either.
Cool, we guess?
Sherman did have some legitimately good things to say about Eagles fans though:
“They are great fans. … They are passionate. There’s nothing wrong with it. They weren’t saying craziness. They were just being passionate for their team. You appreciate that. It gives you a little extra edge.”
Sherman, who is never done talking, continued:
“I think they miss [DeSean Jackson] tremendously. He was an incredible player and he’s still a threat…We never felt threatened [by Philadelphia’s wide receivers].”
McCoy on setting the franchise’s all-time rushing record: “It’s obviously a great accomplishment, but it’s hard to really enjoy it on a day like this.”
The Seahawks are an elite team, and in asking if the Eagles are one too, Mike Sielski put it like this:
The Eagles aren’t at the Seahawks’ level, and none of Kelly’s well-crafted play calls or formations, none of his beliefs about athletes’ pace and conditioning, would change a few simple truths: The Seahawks’ secondary could handle the Eagles’ receivers, and the Eagles’ defense couldn’t handle Russell Wilson.
Reuben Frank is disappointed, but thinks this game shows what shouldn’t be happening to anyone at the Linc:
If they’re going to make a playoff run, it’s almost certainly going to have to start wild-card weekend. That’s possible but it’s a much rougher road. The Eagles should be beyond losing by 10 at home to anybody. This was a discouraging three hours of football by a team that had won 16 of its previous 20 games and 10 straight at home.
In breaking news, Doug Baldwin did what every wide receiver does and it worked.
Former teammates Earl Thomas and Chris Maragos swapped jerseys after the game.
The Eagles defense was on the field much longer than usual. The time of possession number isn’t very important to a Chip Kelly offense (since the goal is to score and score quickly), but Matt Lombardo still points out that this is not ideal: “By game’s end Seattle ran 85 plays to the Eagles 45 and held the ball for an astonishing 41:56 of game time.”
You could see Chip Kelly getting a little more animated than usual on the sidelines last night. And of the play below, which got Chip all kinds of fired up, the coach said: “Yeah, he’s running a post route. They missed it. I missed plays too. I had big misses too.” Yea, this is big though:
Liberty Broadcast
Congrats to Tony Bruno, whose show will now be syndicated on BlogTalkRadio’s new live HD stream. They even sent out a press release and everything:
BlogTalkRadio is excited to announce the arrival of The Tony Bruno Show to our new HD podcast community. Tony Bruno is a sports talk radio legend from Philadelphia and was one of the original voices of the ESPN Radio network. He helped launch the Fox Sports Radio network and his career has spanned the globe.
“Tony lends us a strong credible voice in the world of sports talk and someone for our content creators to emulate. It’s a great pleasure to be rejoined with an old friend,” said Jay Soderberg, Head of Content for BlogTalkRadio.
Tony Bruno on why he chose BlogTalkRadio, “Deciding who to partner with was an exhaustive process. BlogTalkRadio is the ONLY company out there with a fully portable stream and call screener system built into one application so it sounds like what people have come to expect from me. When they approached me with their new PRO STUDIO in full HD hosting platform, the choice was clear. I am excited to be a part of a company that is striving to bring both innovation and quality content directly to the fans.”
What this means for Liberty Broadcast? Well, only good things. Tony is still a part and partner of our network, but will get the backing of BlogTalkRadio’s production platform and national ad sales representation. Liberty still serves as the local ad sales partner.
We also have a little bit of a (slightly work-in-progress) redesign so the site is better formatted as we plan to add new shows in the coming weeks…
You can listen to new episodes of all three shows at LibertyBroadcast.co and follow us on Twitter (@LibertyPods).
