The Birds are back baby! Let’s gooooooooooooo!

Preseason football tonight at Lincoln Financial Field, which means that all is right with the world. We’re gonna see Jalen Hurts as QB1. Nick Sirianni takes the reins as the head ball coach. And finally, hopefully, we’re going to find out exactly what defense Jonathan Gannon is running in Philadelphia. Hopefully anything but “sticks.” The D needs to be “flying around” out there tonight.

In the meantime, I present to you the Mount Rushmore of dumbest preseason moments of all time.

Sam Bradford’s perfect day

Sam Bradford didn’t have much of an Eagles career, but his 2015 preseason game against the Green Bay Packers was the stuff of legends.

Sammy Sleeves went 10-10 on the night with three touchdowns, finding Darren Sproles, Trey Burton, and Brent Celek in the end zone. He had a 156.7 QB rating. What a game.


Bradford would go on to have just one three-score game in the regular season, which came late in a 23-20 loss to Washington. The top receivers in that game were Riley Cooper for the Birds and Jamison Crowder for the Red*****. Talk about a throwback. Can’t believe that was only six years ago. It feels like an eternity.

“Long Cox”

The 2018 preseason brought us Dave Spadaro’s best exclusive interview of all time:

Great work by Spuds.

The turf game

Veterans Stadium was a piece of shit for quite a long time, and no scenario sums it up quite like what we experienced in the 2001 preseason. A Birds/Ravens game had to be cancelled because the turf was so shoddy that it was deemed too dangerous to play on.

From the ESPN writeup:

“The players were disappointed we weren’t able to play,” Eagles cornerback Troy Vincent said. “The field conditions were horrendous.”

Vincent said players actually sunk into the turf on parts of the field near the infield cutouts.

“I’m embarrassed to put Brian and the Ravens through their travel here,” Eagles coach Andy Reid said.

The Eagles, who share Veterans Stadium with baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies, use large squares of turf to cover the areas surrounding infield dirt patches.

(Joe) Banner said the problem involved three areas of the new NexTurf, installed for this baseball season, covering the pitcher’s mound and first and second base.

Players noticed the uneven turf during a routine walk-through before the game. Grounds crews added layers of dirt under the cutouts to try to remedy the problem, to no avail.

It was one of the most embarrassing moments in Philadelphia sporting history. Right up there with the F Lot Crew vs. Mike Scott, the Dirty 30, and the Sixers going out in the second round to the Atlanta Hawks.

Hoagie Gate

Some of you might be too young to remember this, because it took place almost 20 years ago, but back when the Linc was opened we were going through new security measures nationwide as a result of 9/11. Airports had new rules, the Department of Homeland Security was created, blah blah all of that.

What happened is that Angelo Cataldi found out that the Birds would be restricting the size of packages that fans were allowed to bring into the Linc, and so he bloviated about it on air and got himself suspended.

From Robert Huber at Philly Mag:

“Jeff Lurie and Joe Banner are telling me I can’t bring my hoagie to the game?” (Cataldi) shouted repeatedly. “I have to eat my hoagie at 12:45?” He said it over and over and over and over — that Lurie and Banner were taking hoagies out of our mouths.

Banner went public with a rebuttal: “It is patently irresponsible in this day and age to question the motives behind a policy driven by and recommended by security experts.” That was a colossal mistake, coming off as defiant instead of sensitive. The Daily News created a front page with a hoagie coming out of Jeff Lurie’s ears. Then-editor Zack Stalberg remembers Banner calling him to make his case again and again for an hour and a half: It’s not about money. It’s security. Many other stadiums have these rules.

Cataldi also said, on-air, “If the Eagles are given the opportunity to choose the security, I totally expect them to wear swastikas on their arms.” Both Jeff Lurie and Joe Banner are Jewish. The Eagles complained to WIP management, and Cataldi was suspended for two days.

Still, the Eagles caved in to a foaming fan base by allowing larger, clear-plastic-wrapped packages — our hoagies! — through one entrance at the Linc.

Angelo is the true voice of Philly sports fans! He fights for us! (sarcasm).

Honorable mentions: T.O. does sit ups in the driveway, everybody goes crazy for Tim Tebow, “Murder Leg” stinks up the joint, etc