Slow starts, a typical Flyers thing.

It happened again last night as the Avalanche got off to a quick start on the power play en route to a 4-1 win. Colorado’s top line scored three goals in the game with two of them coming from Mikko Rantanen.

Nolan Patrick scored the lone goal for the Flyers off a deflection from Travis Sanheim. Brian Elliott stopped 29 of 32 shots.

But hey, at least the Flyers have Gritty, right?!

Nobody puts @GrittyNHL in the corner (or penalty box). pic.twitter.com/TkQuqYjeBo

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 23, 2018

I have a conspiracy theory: The Flyers introduced Gritty this year as a way to get all the negative attention off of the actual team. Having Gritty do things like crashing into people wearing inflatable sumo suits grabs attention more than a team that has slow starts. Gritty is more popular than the Flyers.

Those Flyers won’t have Gritty on Thursday, as they travel up to Boston to take on the Bruins.

The Roundup: Continue Reading

My goodness. What a loss.

It was Fletcher Cox’s worst loss of his career. It was something that we’ve seen so many times outside of last season. The Eagles from last year aren’t back. The Eagles we’ve grown up with definitely are.

They blew a 17-0 lead in the fourth quarter and gave up three touchdowns to Cam Newton and the Panthers to fall to 3-4 in a 21-17 loss. Jim Schwartz and the pass defense fell apart late. Carson Wentz, yes he’s getting some part of the blame, and the offense choked late. Matter of fact, the offense has struggled this entire year with the exception of the Giants win.

The team is very thin at depth in defensive tackle and even at safety. It didn’t really show, but the Panthers said the defense got too relaxed in the fourth quarter. Never settle.

Kevin will have more on the game as well as the Eric Reid-Malcolm Jenkins beef that started at the coin toss and lingered into the locker rooms. The Birds go to London on Sunday to take on a Jacksonville team that has their own problems.

As for the front office, Howie Roseman is looking at plenty of positions and the team is reportedly interested in Dolphins wideout DeVante Parker.

If you want more Eagles talk, along with the other teams, make sure you listen to the latest edition of the Crossing Broadcast.

Before we continue, a word from our sponsors:

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After a win over the Giants at the Meadowlands last Thursday, the Eagles are back in action at home this afternoon as they host Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. Former Eagle Torrey Smith will also return to the Linc.

The Eagles are favored at -5, according to Fanduel Sportsbook.

Our predictions are after the jump: Continue Reading

PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

There’s just nothing worse than an international break, especially in this country where the men’s national team is an absolute disgrace. Thankfully, all of the internationals have returned to their professional clubs and the biggest leagues in the world will be open for business again this weekend.

So am I. Here come your Week 9 winners.

CHELSEA v. MANCHESTER UNITED

On a slate full of fairly terrible matches (I’m looking at you, Cardiff City v. Fulham), the first match of the weekend is by far the most likely to produce the highest quality of play the league has to offer in Matchweek 9. Chelsea is in a three-way cluster with Manchester City and Liverpool at the top of the table, while United are languishing adrift outside the European places in a tie with Watford for eighth place. Anyone who knows anything knows that if you want to keep your spot in a three-way, you need to put in the work.

The Jose Mourinho sack watch looked to be all but over two weeks ago when United went down 2-0 at home to lowly Newcastle United. Then a funny thing happened: Mourinho, completely out of character, took the reins off his expensive and talented players and basically told them to score as many goals as they could in the time they had left. His players responded with three second-half goals. The ninetieth-minute winner from Alexis Sanchez gave United a rousing 3-2 win that saved The Special One’s job for at least two more weeks and counting as of this writing.

This being London, the press has shifted their focus to whether Mourinho might be fired if his side loses at Stamford Bridge this weekend. Whether Mourinho is managing for his job week to week or not, it is apparent that until United go on a long winning streak, the British press is going to continue to report the story that way.

If he is managing for his job this week, Mourinho is in a lot of trouble. United haven’t won a match at Stamford Bridge since October 2012 — and it took Chelsea ending the match with nine men for United to claim all three points. Coming back from two down against Newcastle at home is all well and good, but if United get behind by more than one goal at the Bridge, they might end up losing by a hatful. Take Chelsea to win at 8/13.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mark J. Rebilas, USA TODAY

WOLVERHAMPTON v. WATFORD

Wolves have begun this season in devastatingly pragmatic (and yes, occasionally really boring) form. They have taken points from seven of their eight league matches despite having scored only nine total goals in those matches — the lowest goal total of any club in the top half of the table — because their defense has been extremely stingy. Wolves have conceded only six goals in eight matches, which is the lowest goals against total outside of the aforementioned top three.

In Watford, Wolves will face a sterner test than they have in recent days. The victories Wolves posted over Southampton and Crystal Palace were professional, but those clubs are already very concerned about the possibility of relegation and rightly should be. But that’s about the best you can say for Watford right now, i.e., that they are clearly better than Southampton and Palace. Watford’s incendiary start (four wins in four) has been followed by an equally impressively awful stretch of play which saw them eliminated from the League Cup and which was punctuated by an ugly 4-0 hammering by Bournemouth at home two weeks ago.

A wise man once said that things in motion tend to stay in motion and things at rest tend to stay at rest. That’s an apt statement for this match: Take Wolves to win at 8/11.

BOURNEMOUTH v. SOUTHAMPTON

Betting lines always tell you something, and seeing fifth-place Bournemouth favored only at 21/20 over a truly sorry 16th-place Southampton side raises a cherry red flag. Then you look at the injury list and you see that two of Bournemouth’s leading scorers, Ryan Fraser and Josh King, are doubtful for this match.

Here’s the thing, though: The fact that Bournemouth is missing a couple of front-line players doesn’t make Southampton any better. The Saints are buried in the table on merit, with a goal difference of -8 in eight matches played, i.e., they have been on average a full goal worse than any side they have faced so far this season. Their last win in league play came on September 1, and that was at Crystal Palace — as mentioned before, everyone seems to be picking on the Palace these days. Southampton have been outscored 8-0 in their last three league matches, all losses. That trend continues here. Take Bournemouth to win at 21/20.

Good luck this week.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS

Wolverhampton to win at Crystal Palace at 8/5: WIN

Tottenham to win AND over 2.5 goals at 8/11: LOSS

Liverpool to win AND over 2.5 goals at 12/5: LOSS

TOTAL LAST WEEK: -$40

TOTAL TO DATE: -$466

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Today’s offerings include “Daily NBA Pick 5” and “MLB Postseason Pick-Em“.

Daily NBA Pick 5

Today’s “Daily NBA Pick 5” includes a slate of options. Charlotte is by no means a barn-burner of a team, but they should handle an oddly-assembled collection of long bigs and minimal guard depth that Orlando puts out. Pick: Charlotte

Despite dropping 126 points on Atlanta in their season opener, the Knicks are still without Kristaps Porzingis. Can we expect a huge game out of Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke? I’m not so certain, but the line is so close it’s worth a shot. Pick: NY Knicks

The Pelicans are coming off an emotional high of demolishing the Rockets. Easy trap game, right? Wrong. Pick: New Orleans

The fourth game comes down to two teams I find absolutely fascinating. Cleveland played Toronto tough for the majority of their season opener, while a dysfunctional Minnesota side played a somewhat cohesive game in San Antonio. Kevin Love looks to get the upper hand on his former squad. Pick: Cleveland

The last game is a battle of two dreadful teams from last season. Atlanta is led by a the fifth overall pick from the 2018 NBA Draft, while the Grizzlies feature a lineup of a healthy Mike Conley Jr. and Marc Gasol. This one shouldn’t be as close as the scoreline would indicate. Pick: Memphis

MLB Postseason Pick-Em

Milwaukee is facing elimination and will send Wade Miley to the mound. Miley is looking to bounce back after dropping the decision in Game 2 against tonight’s starter for the Dodgers Hyun-Jin Ryu. The over/under is truly a tossup as the first five games have seen 11, 7, 4, 3, and 7 runs in each of the first five games respectively. Pick: Milwaukee, Over, Draw

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This doesn’t have anything to do with Philly sports, but it’s a cool story.

If you’ve watched College Gameday even once since 2003, you’ve noticed that there’s one specific flag that flies behind the set on every single Saturday morning. That’s “Ol’ Crimson,” the colors of Washington State University. You’ve seen it in Norman and Austin and State College and even on Independence Mall a few years ago when Temple hosted Notre Dame on Halloween night.

The idea started on a Wazzu message board more than 15 years ago as a way to convince ESPN to visit Pullman, located about 90 minutes south of Spokane on the Idaho border. The Cougars were coming off a pair of 10 win seasons under Mike Price, which resulted in a Rose Bowl appearance and top ten AP and coaches poll ranking.

Sports Illustrated continues the story:

Tom Pounds, a Washington State alum, liked the idea and drove from his home in Albuquerque to the ESPN broadcast in Austin for the Kansas State-Texas game on Oct. 4, 2003 with the flag. His wife, Syndie, made the first Ol’ Crimson, a flag emblazoned with the Cougars’ logo. Someone saw the flag and asked Pounds if they could wave it at the Purdue-Wisconsin GameDay broadcast in Madison on Oct. 18. Pounds mailed them the flag, and the streak began.

…

A booster club called Ol’ Crimson manages the flag-flying schedule. Booster CJ McCoy helps coordinate the group and mails a “flag kit” to each week’s recipient, which is always a Washington State alum. The kit comes with two flags, poles and instructions on how to properly handle flag-flying duties during broadcasts. UPS even gives Ol’ Crimson free shipping.

Since the pregame show lasts three hours, sometimes multiple people help fly the Wazzu flag during the broadcast. McCoy told SB Nation that he estimates 500 to 600 people have waved Ol’ Crimson on the set over the past 15 years.

It’s a really cool tradition. The flag can be easily seen in literally every College Gameday broadcast, of which there have been about 14-15 per year dating back to 2003, so Ol’ Crimson has appeared more than 200 times, even in smaller towns like Fargo and Harrisonburg.

Continue Reading

So the Sixers looked how we wanted them to look on Tuesday: dominant.

Ben Simmons recorded a triple-double with two and a half minutes left in the third quarter while Joel Embiid racked up 30 points in a 127-108 win over the Chicago Bulls in their home opener.

The Bulls put up a good fight in the first half, but the team went on a 17-0 run in the third quarter to run away with the victory. Embiid and Dario Saric (however you pronounce his name) recorded double-doubles in the win, while rookie Landry Shamet scored 12 points on 4-for-7 shooting, all from three.

But the biggest story of the night was probably Markelle Fultz. He scored 12 points, which was good, but on 5-of-15 shooting. It was mainly garbage time, but the Sixers fans gave him so much confidence in the game. He also hit his first 3:

nothin' but net.@MarkelleF | #HereTheyCome pic.twitter.com/cmg0GdQNI3

— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) October 19, 2018

Maybe that will help later in the season. The form does look better, but maybe more reps will mean a much more improved Fultz.

Up next is a Saturday night tilt against the Magic at home. Tip-off is at 7:30 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

In other Sixers news, the team will plan to discuss T.J. McConnell’s future at the end of the season.

With the announcement of the G-League’s alternative for one-and-done guys, the 2021 Miami first round draft pick has already lost value.

The team is also continuing the free Frosty promotion, but with new tiers as well

NBC Sports Philadelphia is also launching a new Sixers show.

The Roundup: Continue Reading