Trouble in Paradise for 11-2 Eagles?

The Eagles are 11-2, on Detroit’s heels for the top NFC seed. They’ve won nine consecutive games. But fans are nervous about the relationship between the QB and his WR1, and Brandon Graham’s remarks on Monday didn’t calm any nerves.

The Phillies, meanwhile, just watched a division rival drop damn near a billion dollars on a superstar who will torment them for years. As reality sets in, we’ll do what we can to provide some copium.

Over in Happy Valley, James Franklin and crew are well-positioned to make a run in the college football playoffs. Whether they “deserve” it or not.

Let’s discuss.

In the email today:

• 🫤 Trouble in Paradise for 11-2 Eagles?

• 🗽 Your "The Mets Got Juan Soto!" Reality Check

• 😱 Penn State Fails Up, Gets Soft Playoff Path

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

The Eagles’ narrow win Sunday over the Panthers felt like a loss. And now we’re seeing some of the dramatics typically associated with losing teams, not playoff-bound 11-2 powerhouses.

The messiness started immediately after the game, when a frustrated A.J. Brown made these comments at his locker:

For a fan base forever traumatized by Donovan McNabb / Terrell Owens theatrics, this is nightmare fuel.

In the Carolina game, Brown was wide open on several occasions when Hurts failed to get him the ball. That much is clear. But every player has bad days. And the optimists among us hoped that there was nothing wrong with the Hurts/Brown dynamic that 100 yards and a couple touchdowns couldn’t fix.

But on Monday we heard these comments from Brandon Graham, on his weekly SportsRadio 94 WIP show:

Graham’s remarks were well-intentioned, but he accidentally did the same thing as Brown: voiced family business to the media. The lineman clarified his thoughts later Monday, and again on Tuesday morning:

It remains unclear exactly how big the rift is between Hurts and Brown. Fixing it may require more than 100 yards and a couple TDs, it turns out.

But that wouldn't be a bad place to start.

By now you’ve had some time to digest the news that not only is Juan Soto not going to be a Phillie, he’s going to be a Met.

The last time most Phillies fans saw the Mets was Game 4 of the National League Division Series.

If you’re anything like us, you didn’t watch any of the NLCS. The Dodgers basically disemboweled the Mets. Sure, the series went six games, but the Dodgers scored a total of 37 runs in their four wins.

The Mets don’t much look like they’re going to fix their mediocre starting pitching. That’s why they paid (overpaid?) Soto.

Anyway, here are a few reasons we came up with not to get too bent about Soto being a Met until Donald Trump is finishing his fifth term as President.

• For all of Soto’s individual postseason success, his 2022 San Diego Padres lost the NLCS to the Phillies and his 2024 New York Yankees lost the World Series in five games.

• For all of Soto’s individual regular season success, he has never won an MVP.

• Say the Phillies gave Soto $765 million. What do they then tell Bryce Harper (who wants an extension)? That the money for his extension went to his likely eventual replacement?

• While it’s not our money, the wisdom of sinking so much money into one player in a luxury tax league means the Mets presumably can’t reload the chamber too many more times, if at all, in terms of splashy signings.

• Soto’s contract brings to mind the likes of Albert Pujols, Anthony Rendon, and Soto’s old teammate Giancarlo Stanton. Players age, they get hurt. Time and the grind of the 162-game regular season plus three or four playoff rounds is undefeated.

There are respected baseball voices who think the Mets made a mistake giving Soto all of this money.

In the final analysis, too, Soto becoming a Met did not make the Dodgers worse. Nor did it make the Braves or the Padres — or the Phillies — worse.

World Series aren’t won in December, no matter what the Mets fans in your life want you to believe.

And again, Soto can’t pitch. He’ll be a difference-maker for the Mets. That doesn’t mean he will be the difference-maker.

Penn State lost the Big Ten Championship game on Saturday night to #1 Oregon. The 45-37 final flattered the Nittany Lions, who at one point were down 28-10 and never got closer than four points after that.

Far from being punished for losing their second game in two tries against top-5 teams, Penn State got an early Christmas present from the scheduling gods.

When the 2024 College Football Playoff Bracket came out, just about every Penn State diehard you know pumped fists and started making plans to be in Beaver Stadium on Saturday. They also did what they could to tune out this noise, valid though it might be.

No point in talking about the bracket and Penn State’s place in it without showing it to you, so here you are.

It’s impossible not to notice how favorable Penn State’s path is here. SMU at home (the Nittany Lions are favored by 8.5), then a trip to Idaho to take on a Boise State team ranked three spots lower than Penn State in the AP Top 25.

Penn State has already announced how they intend to observe the first-ever NCAA playoff football game in Beaver Stadium.

Maybe the one person who has the most on the line this weekend is Penn State head coach James Franklin, whose record in big games has been atrocious.

Franklin caught flak for losing to Oregon last weekend as an underdog. If Penn State loses to SMU this weekend, you’ll be able to hear the screaming from State College at Penn’s Landing.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On December 10, 2017, a Carson Wentz injury derailed the Eagles’ Super Bowl dreams.

OR DID IT? 😯

Stay tuned.

📊 Poll

The Phillies are on the board in free agency! Juan who?

Results from Monday:

🔗 Links

• 🔴 Georgia quarterback Carson Beck’s elbow injury has his availability in question.

• 🔵 In other elbow news, the Dodgers are unlikely to put Shohei Ohtani’s elbow at risk by letting him pitch in Japan in March.

• 🏀 Joel Embiid doesn’t need to tell us how “depressing” his knee injuries are.

• 🏒 John Tortorella thinks his team isn’t getting a fair whistle.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

December 10, 2024

• Flyers at Blue Jackets, 7:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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