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The roundup:

Drew Pearson goes full heel.

 

The Brians Westbrook and Dawkins respond.

 

The Flyers got the second pick in the draft.

 

The Phillies lost in epic fashion.

 

The Eagles reportedly tried to trade up for Dalvin Cook.

 

If there’s one thing Derek Jeter’s completely unvetted player blog is good for it’s allowing us to fall head over heels in love with Eagles draft picks. Last year, it was Carson Wentz before the draft penning what was essentially Eagles fan erotica. This year, both Derek Barnett and Sidney Jones had their diaries published pre-draft, and both of them make me damp-ish.

Barnett:

When I’m selected in the upcoming draft, I’m pretty sure I know what the guys on TV are going to say: “This is the kid who broke Reggie White’s all-time sack record at Tennessee.”

That’s true. That’s something I did, and it’s something I’m very proud of.

But one thing I want to make clear is that breaking that record was never a goal of mine. It wasn’t what motivated me or what I had set out to accomplish before I enrolled at Tennessee. Instead, it was a by-product.

It was the by-product of countless hours spent studying offensive linemen. It was the by-product of coaches taking the time to help me develop my physical gifts. And it was the by-product of my teammates doing their job very well so that I could do mine.

Achieving that sack record definitely meant a lot to me, but I would have traded it away in a heartbeat to have won a championship while I was in college. So understand that even though I’ve achieved some noteworthy things and won some individual awards, they are not what drives me.

I want to lead a defense. I want to be an important part of a winning team.

I want to win a Super Bowl.

Jones:

During player evals at the end of my freshman season, Coach Pete and Coach Lake, one of our defensive assistants, challenged me to take my game to the next level. I had the skill set to compete against some of the best receivers in the country, they said, but I could become an elite player if I began studying film.

From that point forward I spent more time in the film room than in my dorm room — for real.

Man, I started watching so much film that Darren Gardenhire, one of my teammates, nicknamed me “Sidney Lake,” which was a play on Coach Lake’s last name. For a while I just shook my head every time “G-Man” called me that. Before I knew it, I was known to the entire team as Sidney Lake, which made me look like the coach’s pet. Like, C’mon, man. You can’t be calling me the coach’s last name! We had a bunch of dudes on the team who thought they were comedians.

Goons, all of ’em.

No but for real I’m rock hard right now.

 

Good to have Emmanual Acho (bless you) weigh in on the Eagles’ medical staff, which literally no one has complained about since that time Kevin Kolb was knocked senseless:

Also suspect: Emmanuel Acho’s ability to defend. He hasn’t played since 2014 after he was sidelined with a thumb injury.

 

Marcus Hayes is a moron and thinks all long-term planning is Sam Hinkie:

Apparently, Hinkie never even left the 215. All along he was hiding in plain sight down in South Philly at One NovaCare Way. He’d holed up in a basement bunker from which, for the last few months, he’s been guiding Howie Roseman.

He emerged Thursday, blinking and pale, and took over the war room.

This is only a (completely plausible) conspiracy theory, of course. But, still, think about it: Since Hinkie was deposed as Sixers GM in December 2015, the Eagles have been making some very Hinkie-esque moves. This is, by no means, a bad thing.

Except for the Sidney Jones pick – which did have a little Sixers to it – nothing Howie Roseman is doing has anything to do with Sam Hinkie. It’s just that Marcus is such a binary fuck that he sees no grey area in building for the future. Never mind that he for years destroyed Hinkie, and after just 13 games called for Roseman to be fired… and then had the gonadotropins to write this:

With Howie, as with Hinkie, you hope it works. Sure, Roseman has made egregious mistakes that justified his dismissal both before Lurie hired Kelly and after Lurie fired Kelly, but Roseman is on the right track. So was Sam.

Why root for them? It’s hard not to.

Both are awkwardly bright men and decent human beings. Both are eager and earnest and impossible to dislike. Both were unlikely to rise so far so fast, but did because they were obsessive about their jobs and completely committed to their craft. Hinkie deserves another chance. Howie is getting his and, for the past few weeks, he has been making the most of it.

It’s like each Marcus column exists in its own logic-proof vacuum.

 

Meanwhile, Hayes’ colleague and actual professional troll Mike Sielski wrote some dumb shit about Doug Pederson:

Doug stayed to the side. Doug did not speak unless spoken to first. Doug did not assert. Doug confirmed. Doug nodded in agreement. Doug deferred. Doug did not betray or reveal any contributions to the research and scouting and thought process that went into each draft pick, because Doug is not Andy Reid or Chip Kelly or Bill Belichick or any number of head coaches who act or have acted as the nerve centers for their respective teams. This was Roseman and Douglas’ show, their exchanged glances and the awkward anecdotes about their collaboration reaffirming how closely they had worked together and how relatively small Pederson’s role had been.

How small? The question became worthy of consideration Friday night during the draft’s second round, when the Eagles selected cornerback Sidney Jones, who ruptured his left Achilles tendon on his pro day and won’t see the field again until October at the earliest. Sure, Pederson has ceded control and oversight of the Eagles’ defense to coordinator Jim Schwartz, but Pederson presumably still runs the team. And the Eagles went just 7-9 last season and were in dire need of talent and depth at cornerback, not merely a year or two from now but this season, and now they had drafted a corner who might not play a snap in 2017. How did he take that?

I’m not sure how one can crowbar “Doug Pederson is the odd man out” out of the Eagles’ decision to draft defensive players. Sielski then went on to point out the dichotomy between the Eagles build for the future strategy and their signing of Alshon Jeffery and Torrey Smith to effective one-year deals. But he becomes just the latest to miss the point of the wide receiver signings. The Eagles have the option on Torrey Smith, so he represents a low-risk, high-reward option. And yes, Jeffery’s deal is for one year, but I can’t imagine a scenario in which he would come to the Eagles, have success with a talented young quarterback, and then be in a hurry to leave. If he performs, there’s no reason to think the Eagles wouldn’t want to do everything in their power to keep one of the most talented wide receivers in the game. I don’t see those signings as a win-now move, but as trials for potential extensions.

Jack McCaffery wrote essentially the same column as Sielski (great minds…), and that was somehow the highlight of his weekend observations:

https://twitter.com/JackMcCaffery/status/858157260975075328

https://twitter.com/JackMcCaffery/status/858349568920092673

 

The Cowboys photo is the shit:

 

Ryan Seacrest is Kelly Ripa’s new co-host.

 

Peter King goes inside the 49ers’ war room.

 

No words:

 

Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were a hit on the Parkway, and Embiid has never met a dick joke he doesn’t like:

Photo evidence has emerged on Facebook that Simmons and Embiid are the same height, proving that Simmons did indeed grow two inches this offseason:

Guys, this is easy enough:

Adjusting for hair, Embiid has an inch and a half on him. But Simmons is still a REALLY TALL point guard.

 

Trump wonders why the Civil War couldn’t be worked out:

And then there’s this:

 

The Mets.

 

Hot?

 

Nothing strange about talking to your tools.

 

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