Well, we have our soup du jour for the week, or for however many days until humanity checks out for Yuletide gatherings: Chip Kelly’s 4th and 1 playcall that had about as much to do with the loss last night as chapped hands have to do with a blistering migraine. Like, sure, it didn’t help things, but ultimately you were waking up at 3 a.m. with pounding pain anyway after eating a plate of cheese, drinking three glasses of red wine, and playing E.J. Biggers for any reasonable stretch.
The media needs something to talk about. An angle. A narrative. This you know. I only checked in to the sports world a few times last week, having taken off for the baby, and was genuinely shocked to see that Sam Bradford’s contract discussion was all the rage. I don’t recall this being an A-level thread at any point this season, and yet last week, when I popped onto Twitter or turned on the radio, there’s parsing of Bradford’s every word about liking or not liking Philly, or Mike Missanelli grilling a bewildered Al Michaels about what he made of Bradford’s mostly inane non-comments. I thought I missed something, some watershed event that dictated that the third week of December had to be Bradford contract talk week. Nope. Just media ridiculousness.
This week it’ll be the 4th and 1 playcall and the apparent benching of DeMarco Murray, as favor as somehow swung back in Murray’s direction from the assorted humans in this fickle city.
Few things:
I can’t wait until Sal Pal weighs in on this and postulates about the alignment of the stars as a reason for Chip’s curious decision. Oh well I’ll tell you, Mike, there are some people in the Eagles’ front office who believe that the deranged mad man Chip Kelly was told by his astrologist that he must not blink in these scenarios. Jeffrey Lurie would never say it publicly, but decisions like this cost the Eagles millions – MILLIONS – in merchandise sales. Don’t think that goes unnoticed. Now, if we were to play this out, and Chip Kelly tries to hire his interplanetary guru, there are some who believe he will lose the Eagles locker room forever, leading to irreparable harm for the franchise and setting Mr. Lurie back years – YEARS, Mike! – in his quest for a Super Bowl ring. He has an Oscar, now he wants a ring. This is a high stakes game, and right or wrong, the football establishment frowns on this sort of outside-the-box thinking. Now, imagine if Marcus Mariota had been under center. We could tease that out, too, but it appears I’m now being shocked by a cattle prod and forced back into my cage until my next contractually mandated appearance. BE WELL, MICHAEL! BE WELLLLLLLLLLL!!!!