… while the Eagles have turned it around and Sixers are headed in the right direction
By Art Beitchman, DOCBLOG
Twenty fourteen is almost half over, and it’s time to assess the progress our four major pro teams have made.
The last three to four years have been a tough road to hoe for Philly sports fans, who have been hoping that one of our teams will step up and compete for a championship.
Since the massacre of coaches and managers last year, two teams have stood up and taken steps to alter their losing ways.
The Eagles have changed, and for the better. Andy Reid’s stale and predictable approach was swept out to make way for new and innovative coach Chip Kelly. As a result, the Eagles have become winners again, and are building a solid team that won the NFC East last year, and will continue up the ladder with fresh and talented players this coming season.
After spending time in the NBA purgatory of being good enough to barely make the playoffs but never good enough to contend for a title, the Sixers were sold to a real businessman who scrubbed clean those losing ways and started over. The 2013-14 regular season was atrocious, and now they have top draft picks and cap space flexibility to build this basketball team up to contenders in the future. Sixers fans hope they make the right selections with their No. 3 and 10 picks in the NBA draft on June 26. We’ll all be watching.
A new and fresh way of operating has not yet occurred to the Flyers and Phillies, who are unfortunately stuck in their antiquated and losing ways of operating.
Flyers chairman Ed Snider (photo above) played musical chairs with Paul Holmgren and new GM Ron Hextall, hoping the latter can conjure up the magic formula the LA Kings have had over the NHL the last three seasons. I guess Snider believes that after working for the Kings as assistant GM, Hextall will be able to duplicate those results.
By osmosis? And does anyone really know what Hextall did as assistant GM?
What’s not in doubt is watching former Flyers Justin Williams, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards lift the Stanley Cup two of the last three years. If that doesn’t sting them, it should!!
The Fightin Phils are the last on this hit list, which seems appropriate because they are last in the National League.
They’ve got a bargain basement outfield of Ben Revere, John Mayberry Jr. and Dom Brown whose production is near the bottom of MLB. The farm system ranks 29th in the majors for producing talented players, and they can’t promote one player to the big club that can contribute right away, which is a big problem.
Worse, they really don’t even recognize the problems they have. GM Ruben Amaro Jr. is assessing what to do as they fall further and further into oblivion. The scouts and GM are way overmatched, getting beat to the punch by the Cardinals, A’s and Angels at every turn.
As Gordon Gekko once said at a shareholders meeting in “Wall Street,” “These turkeys don’t know preferred stock from livestock.”
Neither do the Phillies.
