Let's Go Flyers?

The Flyers’ season gets underway on Friday, without any of the hype that accompanied the Eagles, Phillies, or Sixers on their respective opening days.

Given the outcomes of those teams’ recent seasons, maybe the lack of excitement around the Flyers isn’t such a bad thing. But Philly sports fans should at least include them in memes about the city’s misery.

Take this one, for example:

C’mon now. The Flyers can make us miserable too! Couldn’t squeeze them in there instead of the inexplicable still from Step Brothers?

You have some Eagles and Phillies talk in your newsletter today as well. Let’s jump in.

In the email today:

• 🇨🇦 Flyers Season Opens Far from Home and with Low Expectations

• 😵 Phillies Postmortem Series - Infield

• 🚽 Nick Sirianni Goes Full Potty Mouth in Run-Up to Browns

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

We know there are Flyers fans who have been waiting for the 2024-2025 season to start for months. We don’t personally know any of them. We just know they exist. It’s like how we know there are people whose favorite restaurant is Applebee’s.

One of these Octobers, the Flyers are going to enter a new NHL season with the sorts of championship aspirations carried in recent years by the Eagles, Phillies and even the Sixers. Unfortunately, it’s not this October.

Presumably, they went with “It’s a New Era of Orange” because “We’re Still Paying Kevin Hayes and Cam Atkinson” wouldn’t fit on those billboards above I-95 by Packer Avenue.

The Flyers have missed the playoffs the past four seasons. Last season was the closest they came in that time to finishing .500 (38 wins, 33 losses, 11 overtime losses). None of that is misleading, though, as eight of the Flyers wins came in OT. They were basically always in reaching distance of .500 but not quite close enough to touch it.

None of the sports books we consulted (OK, neither of them) give the Flyers better than +190 odds to make the playoffs. Being stuck in the Metropolitan Division with the Devils, Rangers and Hurricanes — three of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference — isn’t helping.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the die-hard Flyers fans tuning in tonight will be wise to switch out their preferred mass-produced light beer for iced coffee. The Flyers’ first three games are in western Canada followed by a stop in Seattle before they finally play their home opener on October 19, a rematch against the Canucks.

Don’t misunderstand us. We would LOVE to open Monday’s send (after the Eagles bloc, of course) with a gushing recap of two big Flyers dubs in Vancouver and Calgary.

In all honesty, though, if you offered us a split right now, we’d snap your hand off at the wrist grabbing it.

One of the worst things about the Phillies’ early postseason exit is that there’s no convenient scapegoat. No Craig Kimbrel to kick around, for example.

Rob Thomson gets his fair share of criticism, like any manager. But there aren’t too many fans calling for his head.

Maybe we can still blame those shadows?

The sad truth is that—bizarro-world Jason Kelce voice—“It’s the whole team!” The stars in the lineup didn’t produce. The role players didn’t play their roles. The starting pitching was solid, but the relievers who dominated in the regular season turned into pumpkins when the clock struck October.

And when there are myriad concerns with a team, the fixes aren’t so clear. Over the next few days we’ll examine the Phillies’ entire roster in search of answers. We began with the starting infield on the website, and here’s a highly abbreviated version of that piece:

• C J.T. Realmuto: He’s 33, and the massive amount of innings he’s logged behind the plate are beginning to take a toll. The .751 OPS he posted in 2024 isn’t bad for a catcher, but it’s lower than both the .762 OPS he posted in 2023 and his .782 career OPS.

  Realmuto is still a great player and tough as nails. But he missed the most games of his career last season and could probably benefit from some time at DH. The Phillies would be wise to invest in a stronger backup.

• 1B Bryce Harper: Harper shows no signs of slowing down at age 31. His offensive numbers hovered around his career averages and he played fantastic defense at first base. He’s also one of the very few guys who showed up in the NLDS.

• 2B Bryson Stott: Stott’s regression this year puts the club in a tough spot. In 2023 he looked like an emerging star. But in 2024 he often looked lost at the plate. At the very least, he provides speed and a great glove. But can he be trusted to do better than the .671 OPS he put up this year?

• 3B Alec Bohm: Bohm had two different seasons, hitting .295 with an .830 OPS before the All-Star break, and .251 with a .681 OPS after. He’s under club control through 2026, but a Phillies organization looking for potential upgrades just might look in his direction.

• SS Trea Turner: Turner’s 2024 OPS (.807) wasn’t far off from his career average (.829). And he’s locked into a million-year contract. The Phillies would love for Turner to shore up his defense, and Tim explored a potential move to second base. But Turner isn’t going anywhere.

We’ll examine the outfield next. That situation is much messier.

We don’t know how Nick Sirianni possibly missed the memo, but peppering psych-them-up speeches to Philadelphia athletes has a very bad recent track record.

John Middleton tried this s*** a couple of weeks ago:

We all saw how that ended. Sirianni attended Game 1 of the NLDS, and therefore presumably followed the remainder of the series. He has to know that Mr. Middleton in fact is not getting his f***ing trophy back. Maybe not for a long time.

But here’s the ball coach, in a post pulled directly from the team’s X, hitting his charges with lots of poopy rhetoric:

God forgive us, but that paragraph above…like…how can anyone not be reminded of this:

AND THE EAGLES ARE PLAYING THE BROWNS. This s*** writes itself.

The Eagles are laying nine and a half on Sunday afternoon. The way things are going around here, though, we’d be more than happy if they just win by a deuce.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On October 11, 1993, the Phillies and Braves played game five of the NLCS:

📊 Poll

Results from Thursday:

🔗 Links

• ♀️ From the “Not Sure Who Was Asking for This” department, the WNBA Finals will be a best-of-seven series starting next season.

• 😡 Game 5 of the Dodgers/Padres series will decide…well, you know.

• 📺️ Paul George’s Sixers debut will be on League Pass, per our Austin Krell.

• 🙄 That’s some unfortunate scheduling for Calum Scott.

• ☠️ Conor McGregor cannot resist the call of the octagon.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

Friday, October 11

• Sixers at Timberwolves (preseason), 7:00 p.m. (NBA League Pass)

• Flyers at Canucks (regular season opener), 10:00 p.m. (NBCSN)

Saturday, October 12

• Sixers at Celtics (preseason), 8:00 p.m. (NBCSN+)

• Flyers at Flames, 10:00 p.m. (NBCSN)

Sunday, October 13

• Eagles vs. Browns, 1:05 p.m. (FOX)

Thanks for reading. See you Monday.

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