Two More Years, Topper

The biggest news at Tuesday’s end-of-year Phillies press conference was that the club extended Rob Thomson’s contract through 2026. Additionally, the Phils’ entire major league coaching staff will return in 2025.

In Sixers world, it looks like Paul George avoided a serious knee injury on Monday. But the scare was an unwanted reminder that the team’s health concerns will lurk in the background of game action all season long.

And last but not least… How ‘bout them Cowboys? Ahahahaha.

Lots to discuss today. Let’s get after it.

In the email today:

• 👉 Phillies Coaching Staff to Return Next Season

• 🩻 Paul George Injury Scare Is Sixers' Resting State

• 🤠 Let's Check in on Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

You can argue with Rob Thomson’s decisions, but it’s tough to argue with his results.

He has the best winning percentage (.575) of any manager in Phillies franchise history, with the exception of guys who coached only a handful of games and/or worked exclusively in the 19th century.

The talented players Thomson manages play a part in that success, of course. Not many skippers are handed guys like Zack Wheeler, Bryce Harper, or the other pricey stars on the Phils’ payroll.

It’s also fair, after three years of postseason regression, to wonder whether Thomson is capable of leading his club to the ultimate prize.

But if we look closely, the 2022 team probably had no business going as far as it did. The 2023 and 2024 postseasons were disappointing for sure, but was that on the coaching?

The consensus opinion is that the talented hitters in the lineup just couldn’t stop chasing pitches out of the zone. And it’s hard to put the blame for that on Thomson.

To their credit, the Phillies’ execs didn’t place the blame on hitting coach Kevin Long, either. The club could have easily served Long up as a scapegoat, under the rationale that the lineup needs a “fresh perspective” or a “new voice.”

But instead, by bringing back the coaches, the Phils laid the blame exactly where it belongs: with the talented players who couldn’t execute when it mattered most.

It’s worth noting that Long has a strong relationship with soon-to-be-free-agent superstar Juan Soto, who the Phillies are expected to pursue this offseason.

It’s unclear whether the Phils will be serious contenders for Soto’s services, which may come with a price tag of $500+ million. And in the end, Soto will likely make his decision based on dollars, not friendships.

But keeping Long certainly doesn’t hurt.

Read more press conference takeaways from Ant here.

Chris Rock once did a riff on how if you don’t like going out to dinner with the same person over and over again, marriage might not be for you. He might have been projecting, we don’t know.

Anyway, if you don’t want to live in perpetual fear of lower leg injuries to key players, being a Sixers fan in the upcoming season might not be for you.

We spent the past two days hearing how Joel Embiid is not going to play in the preseason and isn’t planning on playing back-to-backs once the season starts.

Just when we had processed (see what we did there) all of that information, this happened:

If you watch the video, it doesn’t look that good, but then again every time Embiid hits the deck it looks like his season is over.

Yesterday brought word that George merely hyperextended his left knee against the Hawks and that it checked out OK on examination.

That’s really good news. It also underscores the house of cards the Sixers have built with this current iteration of a Big 3.

For starters, every time George feels something in one of his legs, tweets like this are going to be inevitable.

Unfortunately, Sixers fans have to view George’s injury history (and health going forward) through the same prism they view Embiid’s with.

The numbers are out there, and they are problematic. Here are the games played numbers for George and for Embiid the past four seasons:

• 2023-2024: George 74, Embiid 39

• 2022-2023: George 56, Embiid 66

• 2021-2022: George 31, Embiid 68

• 2020-2021 (72-game season): George 54, Embiid 51

It’s tempting to either throw out or diminish the relevance of the COVID season in this analysis, but then both players were that much younger. Plus, for them, they were both actually quite healthy.

OK, so we’ll keep it recent. Over the past three seasons, George and Embiid have averaged 111 healthy games between them out of a possible 164.

The Sixers can only manage this situation so many times with “scheduled rest” and last-minute scratches on the road against non-playoff teams.

Sixers fans have to accept that the coming regular season is probably going to feature plenty of injury scares like the one George had the other night, and nights where one or both of George and Embiid don’t play.

The final step is acceptance. Sixers fans would do well to enter this season with a healthy dose of perspective.

Between the Eagles’ lackluster performance and Nick Sirianni’s odd behavior on Sunday, you might think the Eagles are in trouble.

Then you remember that the other three teams in the division all lost this past weekend, one of them in SPECTACULAR fashion.

You had to watch that game to fully understand what the Lions did to the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. If you didn’t watch the game, here are some indicators of just what went down.

This certainly wasn’t the birthday gift Mr. Jones hoped for. Some NFL owners might have taken this opportunity to lay low for a few days, especially with the Cowboys gratefully embracing their bye this weekend.

But Jerry Jones isn’t just any NFL owner, so naturally he took his frustrations out the best way he knows how, i.e., on people he considers to be beneath him:

Then later in the day, the Cowboys took an L on a trade they weren’t even involved in. The Cleveland Browns traded former Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills, which led to some instant analysis:

Tough times in Dallas. You hate to see it!

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

Here’s the front page of Philadelphia Inquirer from October 16, 2008. Don’t worry about that economic news, it will probably be fine.

📊 Poll

Results from Monday:

🔗 Links

• ⏱️ The Blue Jackets took the ice without a left winger for 13 seconds to honor the late Johnny Gaudreau.

• 🚨 A Ravens fan is finding out what happens when keeping it real goes wrong.

• ⏲️ Oregon’s head coach admitted to exploiting a rules loophole to beat Ohio State.

• 💰️ The SEC and the Big Ten are in talks on a new scheduling agreement between the two primary power conferences.

• Penn State walkoff kick hero Ryan Barker has a crowdfunding site (Editor’s note: Barker is not believed to have come up with the idea).

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

October 16, 2024

• Nets at Sixers (preseason), 7:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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