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Ranking the Top Five Most Useless Tweets Sent During Eagles Games
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The Eagles are BACK in less than 48 hours, and you know what that means. Utterly useless tweets that add nothing to the game! Prepare to be inundated with knee-jerk reaction and captain obvious statements from NFL fans in the Delaware Valley and beyond.
In honor of opening night, we’ve ranked our top five most useless tweets sent during Eagles games:
1. “has to catch that”
“Jahan Dotson has to catch that.”
Yeah, no shit! Of course he has to catch the ball. You think he meant to drop it?
This is a favorite saying of people who work in sports media. Why? Because it’s some sort of accountability thing. They feel as though they are holding the player accountable when they tweet out that he “has to catch that” pass. If they don’t tweet it out, maybe people will think they’re going too easy on him!
Imagine if Twitter was around back in 2002. Todd Pinkson HAS TO CATCH THAT! James Thrash HAS TO CATCH THAT! Unless it was a Donovan McNabb wormburner, thrown at their feet.
2. “has to make that play”
“Zack Baun has to make that play.”
Yeah, well he didn’t make the play. So we move on to the next snap of the ball.
This saying is similar to entry #1, but slightly different, because it’s so vague that it’s even more useless. You can use it for anything really. If Jalen Hurts overthrows a guy by two feet, you can say “Jalen Hurts has to make that play.” Or if Cooper DeJean has an open-field tackle and Derrick Henry somehow gets by him, you could say “Cooper DeJean has to make that play.” It’s so painfully pointless, yet ubiquitous:
3. “needed six there” / “need six here”
“The Eagles really needed six there.”
The thing that makes this one particularly useless is that there has never been a single instance of a team not needing six. Maybe if they were up by seven touchdowns with three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. At that point the game is totally out of reach. But even then, the point is to score touchdowns, not kick field goals. We all just watched the same thing and we agree with him.
4. “need a stop here”
“We absolutely need a stop here.”
As opposed to what, not needing a stop?
If a version of this tweet must be sent, look at how the Eagles’ defense responds following an offensive score. Can they link momentum across units? Do they get complacent and fall asleep? Now there’s something worth digging into!
5. “biggest play of the game right here” / “big third down”
“This is the biggest play of the game right here.”
Logically, you can’t say that something is the “biggest play of the game” until the game has finished and we can fully assess the entirety of it. Otherwise, it’s only the “biggest play of the game” up until this particular point in the contest.
Likewise, all third downs are big third downs, since they serve as a precursor for whether a team will punt, go, or kick a field goal on fourth down. Funny enough, third downs aren’t as “big” for the Eagles as the other team, because if they wind up in 4th and short, they’re gonna tush push it down the opponent’s throat anyway (presented by DUDE Wipes).
honorable mention 1: the beat writers all tweeting the same thing at the same time (player X has entered the blue medical tent)
honorable mention 2: “that’s not a catch” or “that’s a catch” – we’re all gonna see the replay after FOX goes to commercial break, so just relax
honorable mention 3: “that is / isn’t a penalty.” – because the refs have the final say anyway, it doesn’t matter what we think
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com