Sometimes you have to give credit where credit’s due, and as such, I’d like to tip my cap to 94 WIP management for pulling off a next-level radio bit with their “Andy Reid Appreciation Day.”

Thursday is entirely dedicated to discussing Big Red, who will try to win a Super Bowl Sunday evening with the Kansas City Chiefs. He was a controversial figure here, a guy who lost pretty much every big game he coached, and as such, it seems like 50% of the fan base wants to see him lose and 50% wants to see him finally win it all.

That’s the perfect recipe for sports radio, when you have a 50/50 split like that, because it generates equally weighted responses on both sides of the argument. Also consider the idea that if your team isn’t in the Super Bowl, you’re looking for ways to generate traffic and listenership during what’s typically a slow time period after the NFL playoffs conclude, but before March Madness and the NBA postseason begins. That’s how we ended up with 26 years of the Wing Bowl.

So why not take advantage of that down time with the ultimate gimmick, which is spending a full 24 hours talking about Andy Reid? WIP has done an impressive job going all out with this. Even just browsing their website and seeing the list of articles and audio clips on the right side panel made me laugh out loud:

It’s fantastic. They’re flooding social media with video clips and articles. They made a t-shirt with Andy Reid and his mustache and there’s even a thank you card that the talent is signing. They’ve had guest after guest after guest call in and Joe Giglio did an “Andy Reid apology hour.” The level of commitment here really is something else. I think I’d put “Andy Reid Appreciation Day” on my Mount Rushmore of radio gimmicks.

And the bit works especially well in Philadelphia because most listeners don’t realize they’re being trolled. Philadelphia sports fans typically are very poor at detecting sarcasm and understanding what’s genuine and what isn’t. They think “Andy Reid Appreciation Day” is a serious thing, and respond with stuff like this:

And this:

And this, too:

It’s great stuff, and I personally believe that various layers of trolling are taking place here. Perhaps there’s even some self-trolling afoot. King troll Angelo Cataldi, who pretends to dislike Andy Reid, has built his entire radio persona on fake outrage and fake accountability, right? So what better way to counterbalance that than with a radio bit based on fake and effusive praise?

It’s genius. Nice job by Spike and whomever else was involved in setting this up.

#ThankYouAndy