Before we move past last week’s absolute tragedy of a sports day for Philadelphia, it’s important to put the trauma in its proper context. To recap, here are all the things that happened last Thursday:
** The Phillies were eliminated from the playoffs on a 12th-inning error.
** The Eagles got blown out by an inferior division opponent.
** The Flyers opened their season with a loss.
** The Sixers existed.
All terrible, heartbreaking events. But was it the worst single sports day in city history? Here are the other contenders (subtracting deaths and real world horrors, mostly):
— Oct. 16, 1983: Only twice in U.S. pro sports history has a city had three pro sports teams lose on the same day including a MLB team being bounced from the playoffs. Those two are Philadelphia last week … and Philadelphia in 1983, when the Phillies were eliminated from the World Series by the Orioles, the Eagles lost by 30 to the Cowboys, and the Flyers were beaten by the Rangers 5-4.
— Nov. 5, 2022: In a historic first, Philadelphia lost two major sports championships on the same day, within a few hours of each other. After the Union fell to LA in penalty kicks (the Philly squad took the lead in overtime and couldn’t hold on), the Phillies lost a decisive game five of the World Series to the Astros. For the record, the Flyers did win that day, but no one noticed.
— May 12, 1985: The Sixers lost game 1 of the Easter Conference Finals to the rival Celtics just a few hours after the Phillies lost a 3-2 contest against the rival Mets. And a few hours after all that, the city police dropped a bomb on the MOVE complex after a lengthy firefight with members bunkering in the row homes. So, the sports news went a little under the radar.
— Feb. 29, 2009: Flyers lose in overtime to the Canadiens within a few minutes of the Sixers loss to the Magic in regulation. But both of those defeats came about five hours after the worst sports news of the day, when the Eagles declined to match the contract offer Denver made to S Brian Dawkins, allowing him the leave in free agency.
— April 23, 2020: The Phillies, Sixers and Flyers were all scheduled to play that day, but the Covid pandemic wiped out all sports for the week and much of the spring. But one sports event that did go on was the NFL Draft, where the Eagles selected WR Jalen Reagor one pick ahead of WR Justin Jefferson. So that counted for roughly 15 losses on its own.
Given that the 1983 mess involved both a Cowboys loss and a World Series loss, it feels like that hurts more than any other single day. But luckily, we Philly faithful have plenty of pain to choose from.
WR: George Pickens, 21.70 pts — started by Joel
RB: Bijan Robinson, 30.53 pts — started by me
TE: Dallas Goedert, 17.83 pts — started by Pop
K: Eddy Pineiro, 15.00 pts — on the wire
DEF: LA Rams, 20.00 pts — started by Sam
D: Devin White, 9.00 pts — started by Jonathan
I guess it’s time we had a conversation about Rico Dowdle, the #2 RB on the week with 30.03 pts. The Panthers RB has scored 30+ fantasy pts in his last two games, collecting 389 rushing yards and 85 receiving yards in back-to-back victories for his team. He’s fourth in rushing on the season and has suddenly made Carolina relevant, a feat that seemed impossible just one month ago. And his ridiculous performance this week came at the expense of his former team, the Cowboys, for whom he played four years and only broke 100 rushing yards four times. All great news.
Remember when the Eagles didn’t want to resign Goedert? Right now he’s the #2 fantasy TE in all of football, and has more TDs than all but four wideouts in the league. So, yeah, the team was absolutely right to make him take a pay cut.
Just missed a perfect week. Stupid kickers.

3rd place: Philadelphia, -1.00 pts — started by Paul
2nd place: Cooper Rush, -1.12 pts — on the wire
1st place: San Francisco, -2.00 pts — on Bob’s bench
If you’re looking for a defense, Bob has it. He’s currently carrying three different DEFs at the moment, and luckily benched the worst of them this week. Sadly for him, the other two (Green Bay and Kansas City) only scored 3.00 pts each.
Through three starts this season in place of All-Pro QB Lamar Jackson, Cooper Rush has thrown zero TDs and four interceptions for a total of 2.12 fantasy pts. That’s playing as a QB, not as a backup special teams player. The Ravens have a bye this week and Rush has already tossed another pick.

** For the second week in a row, Westwood One commentator Oliver Wilson dropped some mind-numbing comments during the overseas NFL game of the week, Denver vs. New Jersey. The Jets took over at their own 35-yard line in the late third quarter, with an 11-10 lead. Wilson analyzed the situation at hand:
“That’s a good starting position,” he said. “I wouldn’t bet against them trying to get this into field goal range on this possession.”
Look, I know the Jets are bad, but I do believe they are at least trying to get into scoring position on every possession. It would be more shocking to me if they were kneeling down on the ball in the third quarter, assuming a one-point lead will hold for 15+ minutes.
Now, if you want to bet on them actually succeeding in getting into field goal range, that’s a different story. The Jets went three-and-out and lost the game.
** Eagles coach Nick Sirriani, following the Giants game last week: “We’ve got a lot of confidence in [offensive coordinator] Kevin [Patullo] and the offensive staff and love some of the thoughts that we have.”
The Eagles are 16th in points per game, have only managed 17 points each of the last two games, and are wasting their Pro Bowl running back and all-Pro wideouts. But, I do love good thoughts, almost as much as I love scoring.
— Did you get zero passing yards this weekend? Congrats! You were better than Jets QB Justin Fields, who had a net -10 yards passing on the day thanks to nine sacks. He’s only the second player in the last 10 years to have as many sacks as completions in a game. The other was … Justin Fields.
— Did you get zero rushing yards this weekend? Congrats! You were better than Raiders RB Raheem Mostert, who rushed five times for -4 yards. Mostert made the Pro Bowl just 20 months ago, and now he can’t even make the line of scrimmage.
— Did you drive a car this weekend? Congrats! You were faster than Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who topped out at 21 mph in his breakaway 61-yard TD catch on Sunday. Sure, he almost reached the neighborhood speed limit on foot, but almost doesn’t count here.
— Did you show up for work on Tuesday? Congrats! You made more money this week than Lions DB Brian Branch, who was suspended one game due to a post-game fight following his team’s loss to the Chiefs Sunday. He makes about $118,000 per game, and has now lost roughly $247,000 thanks to 14 fines in his three-year career.
— Are you on the Browns? No? Congrats! Through clean living and hard work, you’ve avoided the pitfalls of ending up playing for that wretched franchise, which has not scored more than 18 points in any of its last 11 contests. The last time they broke that barrier was Dec. 2 of last year, when they scored 32 … in a 41-32 loss to the Broncos.

Dallas Defensive End Donovan Ezeiruaku
** Dead. No life. A zero. Leaves unkind, unsaved.
RIP, rookie. I’m sorry it had to end so soon.

** If you’re wondering why I didn’t include Penn State’s awful sports week in the Philadelphia misery, it’s because the school is in upstate New York and not the Philadelphia area. But for the record: 17 days ago, that team was undefeated and ranked #3 in the country in college football. Today, they’re .500, outside the top #25 and looking for a new head coach after spending $49 million to fire James Franklin. Not great.
** I was trying to find players with a stupider name than Cam Skattebo to score multiple TDs against the Eagles and the best I could do was RB Stump Mitchell of the St. Louis Cardinals who scored 2 TDs in a 24-14 win in Philly on Nov. 17, 1985. He’s currently 66 years old and the running backs coach for the West Georgia Wolves. I’m betting he could score two more against the birds next week.

Week 6 standings
Family Cup standings
House Doyle: 13-5
House Garrity: 9-9
House Shane: 8-10
House Quinn: 6-12
And just like that, we have no more undefeated or winless teams in the league. Pop upset Mike (with 170+ pts!) to finally put a blemish on Mike’s perfect season. At the other end of the standings, Emma’s squad finally didn’t play someone who scored in the 130s, and defeated Tommy’s team for her first win of the season. Oliver and Jimmy came out on top in their respective family battles, while Grandmom upset Jonathan to keep him from sneaking into first place.
Awesome Cup Standings
1 — Saquontum Leap (Capt. Awesome), 821.59 pts
2 — Still The Best (Jonathan), 721.47 pts
3 — City Hands (Mike), 708.52 pts
4 — One Plus One is Three SBs (Pop), 704.07 pts
5 — The Fightin Pickles (Sam), 672.71 pts
6 — DeVonta’s Inferno (Mom D), 664.93 pts
7 — Goederts and Monsterts (Bob), 644.24 pts
8 — Vert der Ferks (Ant), 643.10 pts
9 — Schwarbombs (Jo), 635.05 pts
10 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 580.33 pts
11 — The B Sharps (Paul), 569.33 pts
12 — All Rogers No Sauce (Joel), 483.27 pts
A big week for Pop here too — 147.47 pts was the high score on the week for this league, giving him the rare double first-place finish. That was good enough to get him to the edge of podium position. Jo posted 13 fewer points and climbed back up a bit in the standings too. And Jonathan cemented his grip on second with a 118.35 pts performance.
But none of your efforts are slowing me down. Another week, another 120+ pts. I now have a 100-point cushion in the standings, and that’s with Lamar Jackson and Cam Skittleado on my bench. Could I have the league title wrapped up by week 9? Sure, if Bijan Robinson averages 300 rushing yards and seven touchdowns each of the next three weeks.
Speaking of next week … Thursday game, Sunday early game, Sunday late game, two Monday games, two byes, zero scheduling sense. Check your rosters now, and again later, and then again even later.