city of pain

so the signing of geoff jenkins is an interesting one. for one, it’s more money than i was certainly thinking ($13 over 2 years with some pretty large incentive clauses). b, he might actually put up better numbers than aaron rowand.

using espn’s seasonal average, over 162, for their careers:

Rowand: 80 R 18 HR 66 RBI 96K/31BB .286 AVG .343 OBP .462 SLG .805 OBP
Jenkins: 87 R 28 HR 92 RBI 147K/52BB .277 AVG .347 OBP .496 SLG .843 OBP

well damn. shows you the teams get tunnel vision during a walk year. in jenkins’ case, people are likely thinking, after his worst year ever, that he’s in decline. in rowand’s case, people are likely thinking, after his best year ever, that’s he’s finally reached his stride.

we shall see.

(bonus points for arthur rhodes in the background.)

so pat gillick is once again during someone else’s garbage into…garbage. this year’s ryan franklin is chad durbin, a starter/reliever type (meaning he sucks at both) who at the young age of 30 finally got a chance to start for a decent team (le tigre). he did medicore (how’s a 4.88 era sound? sounds like adam eaton’s got some competition).

i think the best thing about chad durbin may be that some tigers blogger has devoted their time to dress chad up like a pimp. this is uplifting. less than uplifting is this from roar of the tigers:

So far this season it seems that Durbin has three pitching modes:

1. Terrible. This is what everyone expects (expected?) him to be. He was supposed to just be rotation-filler until Kenny Rogers recovered from his vascular explosion.
2. Serviceable. This is what everyone hoped he would be, at the absolute best. Nothing spectacular, but just good enough to give the Tigers a fighting chance during his starts.
3. Pimp. This is what he’s been… I think this is the 5th time this season. A pimp start is when Chad Durbin absolutely dominates the snot out of the opposition in a way that is completely shocking when you consider his past baseball history.

ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 phillies!

I thought I’d list some things that jumped out at me yesterday. These are in no particular order, and I’ll save this McNabb nonsense for the end.

The hit by Ken Hamlin on Matt Schoebel early in the game was completely dirty. It wasn’t even close. The fact that there was no flag on the play completely infuriated me. Schoebel had no idea what planet he was on and his reaction to the hit reminded me of Donald Brashear getting tomahawked in the head with a stick by Marty McSorley and lying on the ice like a French-Canadian vegetable. Great non-call refs you a-holes.

Andy Reid using a timeout to decide whether to challenge a call might go down in the record books of historic bad ideas and rank up there with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, Nicole Brown marrying an already abusive OJ Simpson, and God giving Britney Spears reproductive organs. Two points I want to make here. First, the entire premise of challenging a play is that it may cost you a timeout if you are wrong. That is the risk involved. You don’t spend a timeout to lose another. Secondly, by the second angle I saw that it was clearly a fumble, so how do these coaches up in the booth not see this and tell him? Who in the hell is reviewing these plays, Stevie Wonder? I think it’s time to hire me in the booth to get these calls correct and do them within 15 seconds. I would give Andy Reid the correct information 100% of the time. Guaranteed.

T.O. takes plays off still to this day.

Early in the game Joe Buck was talking about how Tony Romo had said he figured out the Eagles defense and it ‘wasn’t too hard to see what they were doing’. Really? It sure didn’t look to me like he had a fucking clue what he saw yesterday. Six points? Laughable. 22.2 QB rating? Pathetic. Trading Carrie Underwood for Jessica Simpson? Idiocy.

Speaking of Jessica Simpson….first off I want to congratulate her for distracting Romo. It must have taken quite a toll on him the past couple weeks trying to decipher what she says, grasp the extent of her intelligence, and put up with her tadpole sized brain. Am I the only one who thought she looked like complete shit? I mean damm. And what has happened to her career anyway? Is the best you can do anymore to leech onto some gay QB and then completely screw up his mojo by attending a game wearing a white trash pink Cowboys jersey? I know these jerseys are for breast cancer awareness or something, but something tells me she doesn’t know that anyway. Hey Jessica, a couple words of fashion advice….people who shop for clothes at Wal Mart, people who have dirty fingernails, people who smoke meth, people whose family tree is shaped like a donut, and people who name their kids after race car drivers and country singers wear those jerseys. You are rich enough to buy and actual Cowboys jersey, especially a nice $250 authentic one, yet instead you choose to show up looking like you haven’t showered for days, Helen Keller did your makeup, and someone punched you in the face a couple of times the previous night. Even a loser like Tony Romo will not stand for this. You two won’t last past February (I’ll take bets on this), and you will fall into an even deeper depression when your ex-husband marries Vanessa Manillo on some Caribbean Island this spring. Love hurts doesn’t it?

Might be time to start looking for a replacement at kicker. Akers is now 2 for 11 from 40+. Not good.

People are forgetting that the eagles only scored 10 points yesterday. Granted if Westbrook puts that last one in we have 17, but I still wouldn’t call 17 points reason to celebrate.
Roy Williams screaming like a maniac after horse collar tackling yet another player. Dude, they instituted the rule after YOU personally. How does this surprise you? Oh and thanks for blowing coverage and allowing Celek to clinch the game on 3rd and 9. That really helped us a lot.

McNabb continues to dig himself a hole with his mouth. I’m assuming most of you saw Pam Oliver’s report at the beginning of the game, explaining her interview with McNabb from the day before and how he was ‘hurt’ by what he perceived as the Eagles organization distancing themselves from him. McNabb also reiterated that he would be a “winner” wherever he played next season. Fine, I get it. Then during his post game interview, McNabb denied everything, saying “”I didn’t say that, I don’t feel that way. I’ve said I want to be here eight more, nine more years. If that’s possible, we’ll see.” Anyone who saw the post game interview saw him rolling his eyes and being completely dishonest. The guy has a persecution complex. Ray Didinger brought up a great point during Post Game Live. He said that when Ron Jaworski was in this town he was killed even worse by the fans and the media, especially after the Eagles started to decline in 1982, and he never complained once. He never lashed out, he never bitched about anything, and he never said he had hurt feelings. He even told reporters he would boo too if he saw a performance like they had displayed that day. He understood what it meant to be a quarterback on an NFL team. He understood that to be successful and to be loved, especially in Philadelphia, you needed to win games. You’re the king when you win, and you’re more than likely the scapegoat when you lose. McNabb does not grasp that concept. Never will. Donovan, you keep bringing this stuff up YOURSELF. If you want it to end you have two choices. The first is to shut up, ignore the 10% minority who want you gone, and see what happens at the end of the year. There are still people who wouldn’t mind seeing you back here next year. Second, maybe try playing consistently and winning. Just a thought.

No one knows how good this Eagles team is.  It’s a shame really.  They will most likely not make the playoffs this season, and something tells me that the rest of the NFC is breathing a sigh of relief because of that.  Think about the what ifs, think about a game here and there where the ball could have bounced our way, and think about our level of excitement if we controlled our own destiny to the playoffs in these last two games of the season.  We have been both so close and yet so far away from where we all thought we’d be back in week 1.

The two teams that will most likely play in the Super Bowl this year (New England and Dallas), one the Eagles have beaten, and the other they lost to by three, and both on the road.  The other top NFC team (Green Bay) the Eagles lost to thanks to a muffed punt.   The Eagles have also beaten Minnesota, who will most likely be playoff bound, and completely blew the game against Seattle, who has won their division and will also be playing in January.

It makes no sense.  There is no team in the NFC that the Eagles cannot beat.  To look so good one game and so dysfunctional the next is tough to stomach as a fan.  It makes you wonder whether they need to give McNabb another year.  It makes you wonder how much of a distraction Andy Reid’s personal life was throughout the year.  It makes you wonder what their record would be if Lito Sheppard played every game, or if Brian Westbrook didn’t miss the first Giants game, or even if McNabb was healthy enough to play against Seattle.

As usual, we do not have any answers, and probably won’t anytime soon.

so it’s eagles/cowboys today…and i feel myself not really giving a shit about the outcome. if we win, fine. if we lose, fine. winning gets us a worse draft pick and it doesn’t even hurt the cowboys all that much. by losing, perhaps this team will turn a more critical eye on itself and figure out what exactly has brought us here.

and if it brings us to, hey this team would have 10-6 if we got a couple breaks, then get ready for another year of mediocrity next year. because good teams win those games and actually ARE 10-6.

so enjoy the game. i’ll be at a musical and going to dinner. not exactly how i had seen my week 15 at the start of the season.