Carson Wentz Was Featured in a Wall Street Journal Article That Rolled out Every Philly Cliche in Existence
Somewhere there exists a secret book, not unlike the sex manual in American Pie, for use by mainstream reporters everywhere. It is filled with Philly clichés and misinformed anecdotes passed down through the ages by ink-stained bastards across this great nation. It contains paper clippings, grainy photos, and even a few baseball cards that when viewed under a certain light contain the codes to become a truly miserable ignoramus. The contents of the thick tome are welcome to be shared on the modern media platform of the recipient’s day. And luckily for Max Cohen of the Wall Street Journal, our current ecosystem allows for copy and paste, because I’m pretty sure he copied every single Philly cliché for use in his article on Carson Wentz today.
Let’s delve.
Headline:
It’s Possibly Sunny in Philadelphia
Oh good– an Always Sunny reference. My expectations are high for the creative delicacy which surely follows.
The nation’s angriest sports fans embrace a most unlikely savior on the Eagles—at least for now
MONSTERS FANCY A NEW TOY!
It hasn’t exactly been the best of times for this city’s sports fans.
The Phillies are a mess. The Flyers can’t make it past the first round of the playoffs. The Eagles are on their third head coach in five seasons. And the 76ers have spent the past few years making a concerted effort to be as miserable as possible.
All that losing would have been tough to take anywhere, but it was especially brutal for Philadelphia’s famously cantankerous fans. These are the supporters who have booed hometown heroes from Ryan Howard to Donovan McNabb, chased dozens of coaches and general managers out of town and, back when civility was a thing in sports, once threw snowballs at Santa Claus.
The trifecta! Right off the bat! Booing, running players out of town, Santa. Say what you will, but writing for a prestigious publication like the Wall Street Journal – or, The Journal if you’re a piece of shit – requires the ability to craft your sentences with a certain succinctness that when read by the reader will reveal the meaning behind your words without having to resort to using frivolous words, or fluff, if you will, and get straight to the point of what you’re trying to say without rambling on and dancing around the point, which, in this case, is that Cohen wasted no time in getting straight to the point of calling us assholes. It seems I’m stuck being a blogger.
But the most bizarre twist in Philadelphia’s soul-crushing sports ineptitude is what’s happening right now with the Eagles. They are 2-0 with a first-time head coach and a rookie quarterback from North Dakota who never played major college football. And the hardened fans in this city are positively giddy.
HARDENED. Forged by steel, sweat, and labor union meetings in the underbelly of organized crime. That’s basically Philly, yo.
“The miracle has arrived,” Angelo Cataldi, who has hosted a morning radio show since 1990, said of the city’s response to rookie quarterback Carson Wentz. “Our prayers have been answered.”
Fuck. Cataldi? They went to Cataldi on this? The same Cataldi who shredded Howie Roseman – what, just three weeks ago? – for trading Sam Bradford and ruining the season? Goddammit.
The infatuation with Wentz isn’t merely a product of his play, either. In this city, where the fictional movie character Rocky is synonymous with an athlete’s improbable climb to success, there are few better pairings than a quarterback who played his college football at North Dakota State and a coach, Doug Pederson, who coached high-school football for four years after a career as a backup quarterback in the NFL.
It took shockingly long to get to the Rocky reference, but yo ADRIIIIIIAAAAAAN, get this malooch some gabagool and tell him I’ll pump his brakes with my fist if he says my good name again, capiche?
In contrast with former coach Chip Kelly, an aloof taskmaster who had promised to transform the team with a groundbreaking offense and revolutionary embrace of science but was ultimately fired after less than three seasons, Pederson has given Eagles fans a reason to feel re-connected to the team.
“Philly wants blue collar,” said Lou Vogel, a technology sales manager from Haddon Heights, New Jersey who drives a green school bus plastered with Eagles logos to every game. “(Kelly) wasn’t blue collar. Pederson is.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. No, we just want to win. I’d take Jose Mourinho if it meant we’d win a championship. Wait a minute– Jay Wright!
To be sure, Eagles fans know better than most that Wentz’s early success is no guarantee of a distinguished career. Nick Foles was the toast of the town when he threw for 27 touchdowns and two interceptions in 2013, but he flamed out the next season. Kevin Kolb and Bobby Hoying once seemed like potential franchise quarterbacks, too, before ending up on the scrapheap.
Even McNabb, who led the Eagles to one Super Bowl appearance and five NFC Championships and is considered the greatest quarterback in franchise history, is often disparaged by fans for failing to win a Lombardi Trophy.
But after 120 minutes of football against a couple of sub-par opponents, Eagles fans seem oddly optimistic that Wentz can become the quarterback to lead the team to its first Super Bowl title.
Yes, oddly. We’re oddly optimistic that everyone on the planet – including the President of the United States – seems to think the Eagles drafted an elite quarterback.
“We have always, as Eagles fans, been like, ‘Why can’t we get somebody like that?’”said Marc Rose, a fan from West Chester, Pennsylvania who works in finance who estimates he has missed fewer than 10 home games in the last 45 years. “‘Why can’t we get a Joe Flacco?’”
Wait, what? Is this guy trolling? IS JOE FLACCO EVEN ELITE?
The frenzy over Wentz’ success has brightened the outlook on Philadelphia’s other losers. Cataldi, the radio host, has noticed a streak of optimism among callers who are used to venting about the rebuilding Sixers and Phillies.
Oh not Cataldi again. His opinions on this matter have been nullified, they’ve been calcified, and my lord he hath crufied our saviors!
Some fans see the Wentz phenomenon as a model for the upcoming NBA season. The Sixers losing so much last season finally won them the No. 1 pick in the draft, which they used to select Ben Simmons. Why can’t he be the next Wentz? “If you get the right person,” said Zachary Lazev, a Sixers season ticket-holder of three years, “you can build a franchise around them.”
OK, these things aren’t related. Yes, both Carson Wentz and Ben Simmons are reasons for optimism, but one has literally nothing to do with the other.
You can read the full thing here— it’s worth it just for the sheer dampness that Wentzlemania inspires. But Cohen needs to put the secret book down. Lock it up. Shred it, even. Its contents are no longer for mass consumption. Besides, I’m sure everyone else would rather read about performing The Tongue Tornado, which for use on Eagles fans basically just means saying the name CARSON WENTZ very loudly:
Yep, that’s all it takes.