This Riley Cooper-Eagles Calendar Thing Is the Dumbest Thing Ever

pic via (@geeksandcleats)

Stop it. Seriously, everyone stop it. Last week, a few people alerted us that Riley Cooper was on the Eagles’ calendar for February, or, as it’s also known, Black History Month. Ohhh, the insensitivity. Noted.

Jim asked me if he should do a post on it. I thought about it, considered the whole “well, the Riley Cooper story is kind of our thing” thing, and then told him “no, this is so dumb.” Would it have been better to put Riley on any other month, literally any of the 11 other months? Sure. But I highly doubt anyone – be it from the Eagles or the company that actually put the calendar together – intentionally used an image of NFL’s poster child for racism as the poster child for Black History Month. This screams honest mistake. Few people – especially the 22-year-old temps probably tasked with laying out a product no one uses anymore – live their lives according to the commemorative month calendar. While maybe the most notable of said months (and for good reason), Black History is one of about 60 recognized themes for months. Did you know that October, along with being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, CyberSecurity Awareness Month and Polish American Heritage Month, among others? Did you know July is National Ice Cream Month? Or that May is Borderline Personality Awareness Month, Haitian Heritage Month and Zombie Awareness Month? Would there be the same outrage if, say, the Flyers made Vinny Lecavalier Mr. May? Because he’s basically a dead man walking skating.

For real, look at the dumb attention this Cooper thing is getting because the PC police have literally nothing better to do right now:

The Eagles, ridiuclously, had to issue a statement:

“We do not oversee the production of the annual team calendar. We do not provide any input about the players who are featured or where those pictures appear in the calendar. The NFL licenses the production of that calendar to a third party and we do not have an opportunity to review the material.”

I know it’s a slow week. Trust me. This shit can be tempting. But if we really want to feign outrage over a calendar, perhaps we should turn our attention to the Phillies, who could barely muster up 10 recognizable players and had to resort to ballpark shots, the Phanatic and recently-traded Jimmy Rollins to fill theirs. If there’s one calendar that’s offensive to Philly sports fans, it’s that one.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a post about Joel Embiid and emoticons to get to. #February #SlowMonthAwarenessMonth