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Nothing Settled in Eagles’ QB Controversy — and That’s Just Fine

October 22, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   1 Comment

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Michael Vick Kevin Kolb

PHILADELPHIA — Welcome to the land of quarterbacks. Please kindly check your unyielding desire for resolution at the curb because Andy Reid refuses to speak in hypotheticals.

Of course, the rest of Philadelphia does.

Kevin Kolb is the Eagles‘ starter this week against Tennessee. If he performs well again and Michael Vick is totally, completely and utterly healthy when the Eagles play Indianapolis in two weeks, following Philadelphia’s bye, then who’s the quarterback?

What if Kolb plays fine Sunday, but the team loses to the Titans?

What if Kolb goes out for a play and Vick – who will be the backup quarterback in Sunday’s game – comes in and throws an 80-yard touchdown pass?

What if Kolb plays well this week, but not well against the Colts in two weeks? Then who plays the following week against the Redskins in the rematch with Donovan McNabb?

What if Kolb plays well and Vick is healthy, and then we folded time and transplanted Ron Jaworski’s head on Randall Cunningham’s body to create Ron Cunningham, Quarterback Man, who’s the quarterback?

Who’s on third base?

 

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Halladay, Philadelphia Start Red Doctober in Righteous Fashion

October 07, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Phillies fan and Doctober sign

PHILADELPHIA — At exactly 7:35 p.m. on a damp, raw Wednesday night early in the new month of Doctober, Roy Halladay jogged to the pitcher’s mound for his final set of warm-up pitches to a rousing ovation. By the time he was finished, as the ball whipped around the infield behind him and Ramon Hernandez of the Reds trudged helplessly to the plate, the crowd fell completely silent.

A constant for much of the late day into evening, the billowing noise suddenly ceased, as though someone accidentally hit the mute button at Citizen’s Bank Park. It was no coincidence. Everyone knew the situation. The zero under the H in the Reds’ linescore that glowed on various scoreboards throughout the ballpark was the elephant in the room.

It felt that way beginning in the fourth inning, right after Halladay whiffed Brandon Phillips looking, Orlando Cabrera swinging and retired Joey Votto on a routine grounder to short. Twelve up, twelve down for the Doc in his first career postseason start. When he walked Jay Bruce in the fifth on a 3-2 sinker that failed to tail back across the plate like so many of his pitches did, the moment sort of paused because there was finally a blemish and lest we forget the perfection he performed once already this year, down in Florida, back in late May.

 

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Roy Halladay’s Career Finally Rewarded With Postseason

October 06, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Roy HalladayPHILADELPHIA — For all of his previous 11 years in the big leagues, Roy Halladay‘s season expired after 162 games. No matter how well he did out on that mound could ever alter the closing date. It would arrive like clockwork in Toronto, accompanied by hollow harangues about next year and the brisk autumn air.

Forever stuck in the summer, Halladay’s Jays, blocked behind the Yankees and Red Sox and even the Rays.

It’s important to note that after all of those lost seasons, Roy Halladay never griped. He never pouted and demanded to be traded south. He took home his 20 wins — twice — and his 200 innings (six times) and waited anxiously for spring in Dunedin, Fla., where he would rejoin in progress his clubhouse-legendary workout that began predawn and never really ended.

Such was life year after year for the most underrated performer in sports until former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi flirted with moving him to Philadelphia at last year’s trading deadline. Ricciardi never could pull the trigger, but a “Free Roy” campaign finally came to fruition over the winter and Halladay made it a point to quickly sign the Phillies‘ long-term contract offer that Cliff Lee snubbed a few days earlier. Because he couldn’t do any more in Toronto to get here. He couldn’t possibly make any more starts — 32, 33 is pretty much the ceiling in the five-man rotation world. And he completed nearly a third of those the past few years, and still this moment eluded him.

 

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What Awaits Donovan McNabb — Brotherly Love or Boos?

October 01, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Philadelphia Eagles Fans

PHILADELPHIA — On a Saturday in the spring of 1999, a radio morning man deployed a busload of bitter fans who called themselves the Dirty Thirty to the NFL Draft in New York to boo the Eagles‘ selection of Donovan McNabb with the second overall pick because the town coveted Ricky Williams.

On a Friday nearly two months later, as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I sat with McNabb in the living room of his parents’ home on Diekman Court in the leafy Chicago suburb of Dolton as he recounted the story. He said then, more incredulous than incensed, “I remember going backstage afterward and I told my mother, `Mom, I think they were booing me.’”

And Wilma McNabb replied, “That’s silly. You must of heard wrong.”

“I heard it,” he insisted.

“But why?” she argued. “Why in the world would they boo you?”

“I have no idea,” the quarterback told his mother. “But they were booing, all right.”

 

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Clay Matthews, Packers Stop Eagles Dead in Their Tracks

September 12, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Clay Matthews, Kevin KolbPHILADELPHIA — Out of nowhere the game suddenly turned harrowing for the elite Packers, the forgotten quarterback entering this opening Sunday, the freelancing one subbing for the woozy Aaron Rodgers wannabe, had the home team within a touchdown and driving.

Fourth-and-1 from the Packers 42, first play inside the two-minute warning, you just knew whose number the Eagles would call. After all, Michael Vick had already rushed for 103 yards and he resembled the old Michael Vick doing so, ad-libbing in the face of jailbreak, winking by the rushers like a ghost.

But ask any coach: Just because you know something is coming in this league doesn’t mean you can stop it.

Unless, of course, you have Clay Matthews on your side. And beyond the fantastic Rodgers and that potent offense, it is that defense, led by Matthews and his flowing blond locks, that is the reason the Packers just might be the scariest team in the NFC. Matthews shed two blockers, a tight end and a chipping back, and shot through the middle to swallow up Vick behind the line of scrimmage for the game-saving tackle.

Matthews had two sacks and seven tackles on the day, one of them a vicious hit on Eagles new starter Kevin Kolb that ultimately knocked him out of the game with a concussion. It was midway through the second quarter and Kolb had been flushed out of the pocket again on a third and long and Matthews hunted him down, bounty style, driving him headfirst into the turf. Kolb rose quickly, a chunk of dirt stuck to his facemask, and wobbled to his sidelines exercising his chin. The first-year starting quarterback came out for the next series but according to Eagles coach Andy Reid, soon fell ill and so Vick started the second half.

Packers 27, Eagles 20: Check Box Score | Recap
Buy NFL Gear

 

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Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints: Inside the Matchup

September 09, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Drew Brees, Brett Favre

About Minnesota

Seriously, how deliciously evil are the schedule makers to force the Vikings to open the season at the Superdome? As they say in the Quarter, Tonnerre mes chiens!

Or, thunder my dogs! (sort of like, Holy Cow!)

Five turnovers negated a dominant Minnesota performance in the NFC title game and now the poor Vikes must chase that squandered chance at a championship. Despite some issues at wide receiver, they remain among the elite of the NFC. Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen — the ultimate warrior — cement that fact. But each season, brings us a new story, and those chances have a way of never coming around again.

Favre Drama: It’s hard not to think that last year was the Year of Brett. Everything set up perfectly for him. He quieted the critics and protected the ball for an entire season, running the best West Coast offense since Montana. But in the end, he got in the way of the storybook ending. One Saint told me recently, “We said before the game that [Favre] was going to make one mistake. That he couldn’t help himself. And when he did, we couldn’t drop it.”

And when Favre threw across his body in the waning moments of regulation with the Vikes driving for the winning field goal, Tracy Porter didn’t. See Favre is like Icarus flying to close to the sun. The football gods adore him. They truly do. The problem is that Brett thinks he’s a football god, meaning he thinks he can do anything on the field, and, sure enough, in the end he gets burnt. In the name of Tarvaris Jackson, it’s wonderful for the Vikings that he’s back for season 20, but it feels different this year. It hard to believe he can duplicate what he did last season. That magical ending to Favre’s career just might have expired with that pass.

 

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Max Jean-Gilles Hoping Lap-Band Surgery Saves Career, Life

August 18, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Max Jean-GillesThe most miserable portion of training camp officially ended today for the Philadelphia Eagles with a morning session under a canopy of gray clouds that dulled the uncomfortable memory of the last three weeks. Searing heat and thick still air that choked down like paste marked most of their practice days in the Lehigh Valley — a cluster of rugged old Pennsylvania towns built on rolling hills in between the Blue Mountain to the north and the South Mountain to the south and the perfect place for a football team to summer. Remote and sweaty.

Most of the players left weathered. Too weary to celebrate, driving with purpose to their loved ones and really to their beloved own beds after so many nights on those hungry springless ones in the dorms. Andy Reid had made good on his promise to work them like it was 1999 (his first season as head coach).

In this quest for November and December resolve, so many dropped, and yet a former 400-pounder by the name of Max Jean-Gilles survived.

Truthfully, Max Jean-Gilles didn’t know if he could after undergoing a drastic weight-loss procedure. He can say it now that this first part of training camp is mercifully complete and he did more than just survive after losing more than fifty pounds in less than three months. He saved his football career and could very well be the team’s starting left guard.

 

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Note to Fans: Respect Your Home Turf

August 11, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Redskins QB Donovan McNabb

Conundrum: an invited guest peacocks into your home wearing a shirt that is squarely, unabashedly anti-you.

Your response is:

a) Apologize profusely for being you.
b) Ignore the shirt and offer him a spot of tea.
c) Politely ask him to take off the shirt for the duration of his visit.
d) Confiscate the shirt and set the bum on fire.

When a 43-year-old self-described pot-stirrer wore a Donovan McNabb Redskins jersey to the morning practice as a credentialed guest on the sidelines of their training camp, the Philadelphia Eagles chose C.

Something wrong with that? With having pride? With defending your turf in a gentlemanly manner?

Let’s tackle the scenario first. A team security chief who goes aptly only by Big Dom politely asked Jim Devlin of King of Prussia, Pa., to shed the jersey and he abided without incident. Big Dom didn’t taser him. He didn’t muscle him. He didn’t threaten him.

 

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Phillies’ Ruben Amaro Has Roy-al Touch

July 29, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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On the day he may have secured the National League for his team for the third consecutive year — a feat that hasn’t been done since the Cardinals of the ’40s — the most interesting general manager in baseball celebrates ’80s Retro Night at the ballpark looking like Gordon Gekko.

Meet Ruben Amaro.

He collects aces.

While the Braves cling to a shrinking lead in the East and the Reds and Cards slug it out in the Central and the Padres and Giants pitch the story of the West, the suddenly Roy-buttressed Phillies have become the most dangerous team in the NL. That’s because, as tweak week for contenders closes on Saturday with the non-waiver trading deadline, this second-year GM turns over a pair of Roys for the stretch run.

Bullets, they call them at the other World Series.

With Roy Oswalt now the club’s number-three starter, only Roy Hobbs is missing.

After a pause for East Coast cause and a glowing endorsement from friend and Phillies closer Brad Lidge, the country boy right-hander waived his no-trade clause, agreed to a mutual option for 2012 and ratified the deal eliciting a cease-tweet on the subject of if and where he’d go.

 

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Ex-Catcher Ben Davis Makes Last-Ditch Pitch to Crash the Bigs

July 27, 2010   Anthony L. Gargano   No comments

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Ben Davis

CAMDEN, N.J. — From where he plays on the waterfront, just down the way from a retired Navy battleship that saw action in World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and provided support off of Lebanon in ’83, you can see the glow of Major League Baseball on a given summer evening. The lights from the ballpark on the other side of the river thaw the night sky. It’s so close you can swim it.

Sometimes Ben Davis can close his eyes and feel the breeze off the water and he is back in San Diego and life went the way he thought it would 15 years ago, back when he was selected by the Padres with the second overall pick, sandwiched between Darin Erstad and Kerry Wood. That meteoric rise to the bigs had only heightened his belief that right about now he’d be in the twilight of a successful career as a big league catcher, a favorite son along Mission Beach perhaps splitting time with his successor as the Pods make a playoff push.

Instead he plays in Jersey. Ben Davis is Crash Davis with a caveat.

He’s a pitcher.

Once the kid with the rocket arm, Ben Davis is now a man with three kids and a splatter of gray on his temples who’s giving it one last long shot comeback try, reverse Rick Ankiel style. After all these years, seven major league organizations and three separate stints here in Camden with the Riversharks of the Independent Atlantic League, he can still throw.

“People ask me what I throw and I say I throw as hard as I can every time,” Ben Davis grins.

Just like on the Boardwalk.

“I think that’s my catcher mentality stepping in there,” he says.

 

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