The devastating loss by the Temple football team on Halloween is the latest example of a brutal time for Philadelphia sports fans, or so the story goes. Not true. The real story is that Temple’s football program became relevant at all.
Now, please don’t accuse me of dismissing the Herculean effort of the Owls to give fans something positive to enjoy. Temple has earned nothing but admiration for its near-miracle against Notre Dame. But what somehow got lost in all the hoopla of the past week is that it was Temple football.
If my 26 years in sports radio have taught me anything, college sports is just a passing thought in the Philadelphia sports psyche, and Temple football, until recently, has been worth a chuckle or two, nothing more. Its sudden emergence as a point of actual sports interest, however fleeting, is proof of just how bad things have gotten.
At the risk of deepening our depression, please allow a very brief inventory of the current state of Philadelphia sports:
• The Eagles are a huge disappointment. Chip Kelly is a bust as GM, and Sam Bradford is not the answer at quarterback.
• The Phillies, with 99 losses, are the worst team in baseball.
• The Flyers haven’t made the playoffs the last two years, and they are off to a disappointing start under new coach Dave Hakstol.
• The Sixers are so hideous this season, their new message is not to judge them by wins and losses.
How did we get into this predicament? In a word, it’s stupidity. Our pro teams have mastered the art of being stupid. They keep making the same mistakes, and then – on those rare occasions when they try something totally different – they find a whole new way to fail.
What Temple has accomplished this season is remarkable, but not sustainable. Coach Matt Rhule has brought respectability. He will leave soon, for a bigger job in a better college sports town. The senior-heavy team will revert to form. Bet on it.
The Sixers are the best example of this. No one will accuse them of following a time-worn format. No, under GM Sam Hinkie, they have a brand-new approach. The only thing it lacks is any sign of success. Somehow, in the third year of a rebuild with no timetable, they have gotten worse than the 19 and 18-win teams of the past two seasons.
In fact, they are unwatchable, unless you buy the argument that young players like Jahlil Okafur and Nerlens Noel are providing quality entertainment during 30-point losses. Not in this city, they’re not. The Sixers were last in NBA attendance last season, and will draw even fewer fans this year. No amount of PR spin is going to alter that reality.
A bigger disappointment, right now, is Chip Kelly. He has never had a losing season as a head coach, but he has also never had a team like the 2015 Eagles. All you really need to know is the only salvation so far for this offensive genius is his defense. The part of the team Kelly oversees is lousy – lousy play-calls, lousy execution and then lousy explanations.
Last week, Kelly actually said – at least twice – that the Eagles are “a very good team” that just hasn’t gelled yet. Very good teams don’t lose to the Washington Redskins twice in less than a year. Kelly may still be an excellent football coach, but you won’t find anyone in this city who believes he knows what he’s doing as a GM.
The less said about the Phillies and Flyers, the better. They are the worst kind of teams for fans because they’re boring. The Phillies and Flyers have some new people running their organizations, but they’re still boasting about their unique family atmospheres. Oh, please. Nobody wants to spend Thanksgiving with these people. Just win.
All of which leads us back to the Temple phenomenon of the past week. What Temple has accomplished this season is remarkable, but not sustainable. Coach Matt Rhule has brought respectability. He will leave soon, for a bigger job in a better college sports town. The senior-heavy team will revert to form. Bet on it.
In years to come, the past week will be remembered for what it truly was – a seven-day wrinkle in time when, at the depth of our sports depression in Philadelphia, Temple football actually became relevant.
***
It has never been much of a challenge to hate the Dallas Cowboys here in Eagles country, but they are making it especially easy these days, aren’t they?
By all accounts – except that of morally bankrupt owner Jerry Jones – the Cowboys are botching mightily the handling of one of the worst acts in professional sports, Greg Hardy. There are enablers in sports, and then there are the Cowboys. Does anyone in that organization have a soul?
Last week, in full view of the crowd and TV cameras, Hardy smacked the clipboard out of the hands of special-teams coach Rich Bisaccia and screamed menacingly at him on the sidelines after the Giants had returned a kickoff for a touchdown. Most sane people concluded that Hardy would be suspended for his actions. They were wrong.
Not only did Hardy face no punishment for his actions, Jones actually offered public praise for the player, calling him “a real leader” before vowing to sign him to a long-term contract. That’s right. Hardy will soon be rewarded for attacking a coach.
This is the same Greg Hardy who missed 19 games over the past two seasons after a brutal domestic-abuse case that involved assaulting his girlfriend and throwing her onto a futon filled with automatic weapons. And this is the same Greg Hardy who said when he finally was cleared to play again that he’d come out “guns a’blazin’.”
Add Hardy to the list of Dallas teammates like convicted gun violator Rolando McClain and convicted underwear thief Joseph Randle, and you’ve got a pretty good idea just how morally blind Jones has become. In fact, two years ago, Jones brought back Josh Brent after the former Cowboy was convicted of intoxication manslaughter of teammate Jerry Brown.
For Eagles fans, the best part of the story is that none of these criminals have gotten the Cowboys any closer to the Super Bowl that Jones so desperately craves. If anything, they brought the bad karma that broke the collarbone of quarterback Tony Romo and the right foot of Dez Bryant.
When the Eagles face the Cowboys Sunday in Dallas, you won’t need a program to know who the bad guys are. Anyone with a sense of human decency will be rooting for the Eagles.
***
The most overrated and overstated quality in professional sports franchises is the family atmosphere so many of these teams love to preach. Just last week, new president Andy MacPhail said it was very important to him that the Phillies retain this warm camaraderie between the front office and the players.
Somebody needs to tell MacPhail that the only reason he’s here right now, instead of still enjoying his retirement, is this same family atmosphere he’s so determined to retain. Former president Dave Montgomery treated his star players from the 2008 championship like sons – and that’s why the Phils lost 99 games this season.
Instead of thinking with his head, Montgomery went with his heart – recklessly spending hundreds of millions on players the organization is still paying for past accomplishments. The best example is Ryan Howard, who will make $25 million next year even though he’s worth pennies on those dollars. Howard won a World Series here. He’s family. Ugh.
No team in sports over the past two generations proves the absurdity of a family atmosphere better than the Flyers, who last won a Stanley Cup in 1975 but only recently realized that good players are more likely to win games than family members. Chairman Ed Snider just kept recycling old heroes into decision-makers, with predictable results.
Even now, the Flyers employ a former goalie, Ron Hextall, as their GM, though he seems to break the chain of family-first executives like Snider, Bob Clarke and Paul Holmgren. Hextall doesn’t believe in promoting the next available ex-Flyer, even though he is one himself. Whether it works remains to be seen, but at least it’s a new approach.
The bottom line, especially in this bottom-line world, is winning. The turnout at the Phillies’ and Flyers’ annual Christmas parties may be terrific every year, but it’s nothing compared to the two million people who showed up the last time they had championship parades.
And finally ...
• When I asked Chip Kelly what he was going to do during the bye week, the Eagles coach said he’d be hanging out with me. Well, he didn’t. So here’s hoping he found a more productive use of his time – figuring out how to get his erratic offense to win games for him again. We need a return of the offensive genius. Right now.
• In the history of Philadelphia sports, has any ex-star even become a bigger laughingstock than ex-Phillie Lenny Dykstra? Last week, he claimed that he spent $500,000 on private detectives to dig up dirt on umpires, and then used the information to blackmail them into favorable calls during games. Lenny needs help. Now.
• Mets’ shortstop Ruben Tejada resurfaced during the World Series, just in time to rip ex-Phillie Chase Utley for the takeout slide at second base that took Tejada right out of the playoffs. After his rant, Tejada said he forgave Utley because “I’m a really good person.” Oh. OK, then.
• Speaking of the Mets, it sure is a shame they didn't win the World Series. Especially when the hero that got them there, Daniel Murphy, botched a key ground ball in Game 4, and rental player Yoenis Cespedes kept kicking the ball away in center field. What a terrible shame they didn’t win it all.
• When Matt Rhule was asked last week about rumors that he’ll trade in this big season for a new job at a top football school, the Temple coach said: “I don’t pretend to know what life’s going to bring.” Translation: Goodbye.