Eagles

It’s Time to Drop the Underdog Mantra from Philadelphia Sports

By Sean Barnard

Published: Aug 19th, 2026 · 10:02 AM EDT

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The fit between Philadelphia and underdog identity has been hand in glove for decades. This is a blue-collar city. A pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mindset. You’re never afraid to back down and you carry yourself with a grittiness that can’t be matched.

But with this comes an overarching theme that we aren’t supposed to get the job done. Overlooked and disrespected in a way that no one gives us a true chance. And that’s why it is time for a personality alteration.

Simply put, Philadelphia teams are too good to be viewed as underdogs anymore.

My thought process for this started from the standpoint of the 76ers. We all lived through The Process years, in which the goal was to reach the reality we’re currently experiencing. I remember believing Michael Carter-Williams was the stat-stuffing guard of the future or that Tony Wroten’s left-handed drives would be unstoppable forever.

But flash forward to today, and the Sixers are set to roll out a starting lineup of Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, and Joel Embiid. There are five MVPs, five NBA championships, and 36 combined All-Star appearances in this starting lineup alone. Embiid deserves more credit than he sometimes gets for being the foundation that made it possible for this artful lineup to be established around him. He has lived through Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Paul George, and a cast of other characters, all while front office personnel was throwing jabs at him on burner accounts and fighting his own individual battle with his body to get to the peak of the player that he has become.

The reward for this should be viewed as the roster that is now in front of him. He’ll be joined by a pair of guards who will leave nothing on the table in terms of work-rate, effort, and desire to be great, without carrying a level of ego that is any bit of a concern moving forward. Even more notable, a former Finals MVP who has been traded away from the rival Celtics and has not been shy to embrace the chip on his shoulder. Beyond Maxey, Edgecombe, and Brown, there’s the greatest player of all time, LeBron James, who came to Philadelphia with the sole goal of adding another championship to his pristine resume. The failed 2018 recruitment can be forgotten. The NBA’s all-time scoring champion signed on a veteran’s minimum with the recognition that this was the best place for him to close out his storied career.

A team carrying this level of star power is not one that can throw on the underdog mask and act like no one will see them coming. The Sixers have climbed to the third-best title odds, tied with the defending champion Knicks at +900 odds. They trail only New York for the best odds to win the Eastern Conference, and rightfully so. This is not just checking the boxes from an Xs and Os basketball perspective of completing a roster; this is bringing in guys who know exactly what it takes to win, carry a chip on their shoulder, and are unwilling to skip steps in the process.

But it is not just the Sixers.

The Philadelphia Eagles have rightfully been viewed as the gold standard for how a professional organization should function for several years. Howie Roseman took his lumps during the Chip Kelly era, in which he was forced to step aside. He returned with a vengeance, building out a roster that has been to three Super Bowls since 2017 and won two of them. The Eagles enter this season with +1600 odds to win it all, which is tied with the Patriots for the fifth-best odds in the league. 

Even as the talking points continue to be centered around Jalen hurts, and how much coaching credit Nick Sirianni deserves, the reality is there are 25+ NFL organizations that would willingly trade places with the Eagles. They’re the measuring stick for success, and it would not be a major surprise to any person in this city or general NFL fan if there is another parade down Broad Street a few months from now.

Even the Phillies have fallen in this category, even if it’s in less fortunate circumstances.

This was an organization which was once viewed as the fun-loving, good vibes team that performed well ahead of the expected curve. Flash forward to the current season, and a team that just makes the playoffs or wins only one round in the postseason is not nearly good enough. A mid-season slip, which tends to happen in the 162-game grind of the MLB season, feels like the end of the world in a way that I cannot imagine is the case in very many other cities.

Even as they continue to fight their way into the postseason, the Phillies currently hold +2000 odds of winning the World Series, which ranks ninth in MLB. This is despite the chance of missing the playoffs outright as they find themselves firmly in the Wild Card race. Even with some apparent flaws, they have a clear case for the best pitcher on the mound on three out of every five gamedays, the home run leader in all of baseball, and blue chip stars that plenty of organizations blinked at before even having real free agency negotiations. Philadelphia is paying $287.8 million in total payroll this season, which ranks fourth in MLB. They trail only the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets in spending. The expectation by the front office, players, and fans alike is that this is a surefire World Series contender year in and year out.

Without diminishing the Flyers and Union, both sports find themselves in different media ecosystems. The Union have had far more success than has been recognized, although the continued selling of top talent and loss of Jim Curtain has left myself and plenty more a little less aligned with the organizational direction. With this said, they have been a blast since the World Cup break and have a path to the postseason as they have in seven of their past eight years.

In contrast to this, for the first time in over a decade, there feels to be some real momentum for the Flyers. Porter Martone is the type of young talent that can create a fanbase in itself and is seemingly aligned with the organization. Maybe the underdog label has not escaped these two in the way that is the case for the other major sports teams in Philadelphia, but this is more about timing than a critique on their direction.

The underdog is an honorable label.

It’s someone who knows they’re not expected to win when walking into battle and accepts this challenge nonetheless. But you can only walk into these battles and come out victorious so many times before the underdog label escapes you. There should be something even more honorable and rewarding about climbing out of this category. Philadelphia teams are not just ready to go toe-to-toe with the greatest opponents in their respective sports, but they set standards that other organizations and cities aspire to.

For all the best reasons, it’s time to put away the dog masks and embrace the targets that are on the backs of the professional sports teams here. They’re no longer underdogs, but the sun that the entire sports world revolves around. We are the primary talking point in the sports media ecosystem, and it’s time to start acting as such.