December 15, 2025
The Eagles had an easy time with the god-awful Raiders, as evidenced by the 31-0 final score on a snow-blown, windy Sunday at the Linc. The defense was terrific, even without Jalen Carter in the middle. The offense showed great improvement against Maxx Crosby and 10 absolute stiffs.
I’m not sure that we learned anything, though.
There were no bad choices in the play-calling. The Raiders are equally inept on both sides of the ball. Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo can heave a sigh of relief for a few days anyway. Maybe he can even start having eggs for breakfast again.
No, the win over the Raiders was gratifying only in the way it offered a positive new spin on some compelling story lines.
Obviously, the biggest was Jalen Hurts, who endured one of the most challenging weeks of his career after that five-turnover debacle against the Chargers. Hurts was verbally assaulted by the legion of haters who have been lurking in the weeds since he won the starting QB job in 2020.
There was even an undercurrent of conversation about – gasp! – benching Hurts for the immortal Tanner McKee, who so dazzled in the exhibition season that a few morons decided he is a better option running the offense, Super Bowl MVP be damned.
As asinine as that suggestion is, my replacement at WIP, Joe DeCamera, had no choice but to ask Nick Sirianni if the possibility of a benching was under consideration, and the head coach, for once, gave an appropriate response, calling it “ridiculous.”
What happened next eluded most people, so I present it here with understandable disgust. NJ.com’s Bob Brookover publicly lambasted DeCamera for asking two “idiotic” questions about Hurts’ possible benching.
First of all, who the hell is Brookover to challenge another member of the media over something being discussed in every bar and on every street corner in Philadelphia? And second, maybe Brookover should try asking a tough question once in a while himself before he starts shaming others for doing so.
The only job of the media is to ask the questions the fans want answered. Got it? After all these years, Brookover apparently still needs a reminder of what he does for a living.
The good news for Bob is, he will be receiving a nice Christmas card from Eagles PR weasel Bob Lange very soon.
What I learned in my 33 years interviewing coaches and managers every week was never to worry about how smart or dumb a question sounded like. That’s why, during that 2020 season, I asked Doug Pederson if he was mulling a change in QB from Carson Wentz to Jalen Hurts. His response made headlines and foreshadowed the imminent departure of Wentz.
“If you get to that spot where you don’t start him or you bench him,’ the ex-Eagles coach said, “I think you’re sending the wrong message to your football team that the season is over.”
Translation: Wentz couldn’t handle a demotion, even for a game or two, and Hurts wasn’t ready yet to take over.
The only dumb questions are the ones you don’t ask.
Or are afraid to ask.
Anyway, Hurt was exactly what he needed to be against the Raiders – careful with the ball, decisive with his throws and more willing and able to run for first downs when the opportunities arose. He is not getting benched. Not this season, anyway.
It is ironic, though, that McKee actually did get to play, in the fourth quarter because the outcome of Sunday’s game had long been decided. In his only series, the Stanford stud led the Eagles offense down the field on a 16-play drive that consumed 79 yards before fizzling at the two-yard line.
McKee is going to be a starter somewhere soon. And maybe even next year if something Hurts did yesterday was another foreshadowing of a shift in affections between the QB and the Birds.
Always a model for the latest in Eagles headgear, Hurts instead showed up yesterday wearing the classic NY Yankees cap, which he displayed again at his postgame news conference.
Was the choice of hats a sign of anything?
Or did Hurts not want to ruin one of his nice Eagles caps on a windy, snowy day?
The plot thickens (maybe).
Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, two other stories made Sunday’s dull win more entertaining, at least to me. Dallas Goedert and Brandon Graham had big games against the Raiders, especially given the fact that neither figured to be on the roster this season.
Goedert, who was the subject of trade rumors all winter before agreeing to a reduced salary, had seven catches for 70 yards, including a big 32-yarder. He appeared no different to me than he has been his entire eight-year career in Philadelphia – reliable, versatile (he can block, too) and an exemplary teammate.
One of the biggest mysteries of the Howie Roseman era has been the GM’s disloyalty toward his tight ends. For reasons that have never been clear, Roseman dumped one of the franchise’s best ever at that position, Zack Ertz, in a mid-season 2021 trade to Arizona after eight-plus brilliant seasons here.
Ertz remained a valuable contributor for the next five seasons before he tore his ACL last week while playing for Washington. He was never the blocker Goedert became, but exiling Ertz – also a tremendous asset off the field with his soccer-star wife Julie – was one of the coldest acts of Roseman’s long tenure.
There’s a very good chance we will see it again after this season, when Goedert is expected to land elsewhere.
I still don’t understand why the Eagles ended things with Ertz that way, nor the speculation that Goedert is next. What is it about NFL tight ends that Roseman hates so much?
Well, at least he still loves Graham, a team leader in his 16th year after an aborted retirement. At 37, with more than half a season spent in a rocking chair, Graham answered the call after the Eagles ran out of good edge rushers, and he can still play.
In the first half, Graham recorded two sacks of a human statue, ex-Eagle Kenny Pickett, as the Birds defense held the Raiders to zero points and 75 yards.
Granted, it happened against the worst offense in football, but still, if you aren’t impressed by Brandon Graham, please go get your heart checked right away. You may not have one.
It was my privilege to interview Graham every week for many years when I was at WIP, and he was one of the sweetest humans I have ever encountered. His love of Philadelphia, of the fans and of the game he played were apparent in his every appearance on our show.
I have never rooted for anyone harder than I do for Brandon Graham. No one has ever been more worthy of the fan passion he inspires.
Oh, yeah. He has also won two Super Bowls.
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No, I’m not done yet. Here’s more:
- I know I’m supposed to feel sad today at the way the season ended for the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes on Sunday. Sorry. I don’t. No one wants to see a great player tear an ACL the way the KC QB did near the end of a loss that dropped the Chiefs to 6-8 and out of the playoffs this season. But if you’re an Eagles fan, it must have crossed your mind that the Birds’ obliteration of KC in the Super Bowl earlier this year was the dagger that led to this brutal season for the Chiefs. As for Andy Reid, well, it couldn’t happen to a bigger fraud. Bravo for that.
- Joel Embiid had a vintage night in a 115-105 win over the putrid Pacers last Friday. The enigma managed 39 points in 32 minutes, the first time he has managed 30-plus in a nearly a calendar year. After the game — in which Tyrese Maxey was a late scratch with an illness — Embiid said: “I don’t expect to have to do this when everybody’s healthy, but I will if I have to.” How comforting. At $55 million a year, the aging center will exert himself if he has to. Just don’t expect it all the time. Are there any fans left who still wonder why the Sixers have won nothing with Embiid?
- Is anyone in the ever-softening Philadelphia sports media ready to point out that the Phillies are living proof of the definition of insanity — doing the same thing season after season and expecting a different result? Kyle Schwarber is back, and there’s a good chance J.T. Realmuto will be signed at big new numbers soon, too. Of course, manager Rob Thomson will be back with his etched-in-stone pitch counts and other analytics obsessions for 2026. Yeah, the Dodgers are petrified right now at having to face the same old Phillies again.
- I absolutely love what Rick Tocchet did last week after the Flyers lost a tough game to Vegas, 3-2, in overtime. He told the media: “I can name 10 players who didn’t do anything.” Wow. Calling out your own players, even without using names, is verboten these days. The next morning in the Inquirer was this gutless headline: Flyers coach Rock Tocchet was frustrated after an OT loss to Vegas. Was It Warranted? There was a time, not so long ago, when the media embraced honesty like this. Now they question it. Ugh.
- The best way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon of football when the Eagles aren’t playing is the Red Zone Channel, which offers seven or eight games at once every Sunday at 1 p.m. The top national broadcaster in sports today, Scott Hanson, oversees the mayhem with intensity and humor. Unfortunately, ESPN recently took over the Red Zone Channel and has slowly been increasing the commercial load. Last year, for the first time, there were a few. This season the ads have increased by 400%, according to one study. In the end, no one is surprised. Everything ESPN touches turns to, er, the opposite of gold.