Sal Pal's Melodramatic Hype Machine is Contradicting Itself
Photo credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Sal Paolantonio hopped on 97.5 again yesterday because, I’m told, his spots are among the highest rated 15-minute time slots each week for the station (no joke). He was part of 97.5’s Football Roundtable, an actually pretty decent thing where Mike Missanelli, Sal, Brian Westbrook and Tim McManus get together to talk about the state of the Eagles. It’s good radio, overall, but, not surprisingly, Sal was a shit-throwing drama queen and posited plausible theories that anybody could’ve come up with which basically contradicted the plausible theories that anybody could’ve come up with that he put forth on Saturday, on 97.5, speaking to McManus and Pat Callahan.
Watch as full-fledged Melodramatic Sal, a cousin to Speculation Sal, contradicts himself:
Saturday
“It’s virtually impossible to draft Marcus Mariota from where the Eagles draft. How much they would have to give up to move up to get Mariota is draconian. I can’t see a solution to this problem other than making your team so weak that you mortgage the future.”
Tuesday
“So if Marcus Mariota says go the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the Tennessee Titans [and says], “You may draft me, you may do an Eli Manning here, but I’m gonna do an Eli Manning on you. I don’t want to play for you. I want you to trade me to the Philadelphia Eagles.” Okay? So there’s a back room deal that’s worked out. “I wanna play for my coach, and I’ll play if I’m traded. If not, I won’t play for you.”
It’s virtually impossible… until you construct a scenario in which it isn’t.
Saturday
“Could it happen? It could. Is Kelly absolutely infatuated with this young man? He is. If Oregon and Mariota win the National Championship, it’s even gonna be much more difficult to get this guy, to try to move up that many spots.”
Tuesday
“Everyone says you gotta jump from 20 to 1. You really don’t. If you analyze this, you really only have to jump ahead of three teams:, just three, to get to Tampa’s number one pick. The Tennessee Titans at number two will probably take a quarterback because they need a quarterback. Then you go all the way through: Jacksonville doesn’t need one, Oakland doesn’t need one, Washington doesn’t need one, the Jets do at six — there’s another team — St. Louis Rams at ten, that’s three. Then you go all the way down to the Eagles at 20, okay?”
“It’s a good way [to get him]. You don’t have to go ahead 19 teams, you just have to beat out three others. If I’m Marcus Mariota, do I want to play for the Tennessee Titans? No I don’t. Do I want to play for the New York Jets? I do not. Do I want to play for the St. Louis Rams? Maybe. Maybe I do because the Rams are moving to Los Angeles and I’d rather play on the West Coast. So the team that you absolutely must beat in the trade discussions, is the St. Louis Rams. And the one thing the Eagles have that the Rams don’t have, is what? Chip Kelly.”
Presenting Jenga: Sal Pal Edition!
If you pull one out, the whole thing falls down! Watch: If I’m Marcus Mariota, do I want to play for the Tennessee Titans? No I don’t. Do I want to play for the New York Jets? —edit: YES—. Do I want to play for the St. Louis Rams? -Maybe. Maybe I do because the Rams are moving to Los Angeles and I’d rather play on the west coast. So the team that you absolutely must beat in the trade discussions, is the St. Louis Rams. <—— That’s not true anymore!
Or: If I’m Marcus Mariota, do I want to play for the Tennessee Titans? No I don’t. Do I want to play for the New York Jets? I do not. Do I want to play for the St. Louis Rams? —edit: NO— Maybe I do because the Rams are moving to Los Angeles and I’d rather play on the west coast. So the team that you absolutely must beat in the trade discussions, is the St. Louis Rams. <—— That’s not true anymore!
You get the point. And regardless, wouldn’t it be four teams the Eagles would need to beat out if you include the Bucs, who, you know, might actually want to draft the guy? Am I missing something here?! IS MY SAL PAL HYPE MACHINE BROKEN?!?!?!
Saturday
“I just dropped a major hint— there’s only one coach who can coach Marcus Mariota.”
Callahan: “That’s the coach you talked about who has almost no probability of getting him, right?”
“Not unless that coach is coaching in Tampa.”
Tuesday
“It’s pretty clear that [Chip Kelly] wants control of the operation so he can control a way to get Marcus Mariota. Someway, somehow. You’ve got to believe he’s trying to figure out a way to get Marcus Mariota. That’s the only reason why he would go through all of this upheaval and all of this internal gymnastics to figure out a way to remarry himself with a player that he loves, that he knows can run this system at a championship level.”
Mike Miss: “Is it possible that Chip came in there and said, you put me in charge, this is what I want to do?
“Well that I don’t know. That I don’t know. That I don’t know. I’m saying this guy’s a big thinker, he’s always been a big thinker. If I’m a big thinker and I know that I want this guy, there’s a way to do it. There’s a way to do everything. You figure it out.”
Saturday
“I think it’s still theoretical in nature.”
Tuesday
“People are saying it’s a pipe dream. I’m not [so] sure that it can’t be done.”
So, to recap, Sal Pal, “ESPN’s preeminent Eagles reporter” according to 97.5, said it’s virtually impossible for the Eagles to draft Mariota because they can’t move up that many picks, unless they can move up that many picks because it’s really not that many picks, because only three four teams want him, but one of them has the first pick, but if he goes to Tampa, Chip Kelly will leave the Eagles when his contract is up to go there and coach Mariota even though the only other team Mariota may want to play for is the Rams but not really because Chip Kelly’s not their coach and that’s the only team the Eagles are competing with for his services, because if you throw enough shit at the wall, something will eventually stick and Sal will look like a genius. Got it.
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