April 01, 2015
On this day every year, someone inevitably writes a story that seems too good, bad or otherwise to be true. Most of the time, it takes only a few paragraphs of reading before you start questioning its validity. And once that happens, the joke is already ruined.
But why do people do this, especially in sports? There's no need to fabricate these kind of stories, because they happen all the time.
Think about the last time you saw a "Breaking News" alert flash across the screen and paused, if only for a second, to re-read what you saw because your brain refused to accept the message it was receiving from your eyes. How long ago was that? A week? A month?
It probably isn't much longer than that and it certainly isn't for Eagles fans, who were left scratching their heads after LeSean McCoy was traded to the Buffalo Bills.
Sometimes, like when Shady was dealt or DeSean Jackson released, these shocking moves send the Philly faithful here into full-fledged panic. Other times -- take the Cliff Lee magical #MysteryTeam tour of 2010 for example -- they leave fans so euphoric that they have a hard time believing them.
However, not all April Fools jokes have a happy ending. Eagles fans will find out soon enough if dealing McCoy was a sound move by Chip Kelly. But do you remember how excited everyone was when the Eagles stole Nnamdi Asomugha from the Cowboys in 2011? The Birds had "Dream Team." Right...
So as you read through the list that follows, remember none of these moments were actually April Fools jokes, even if they felt that way at the time. With that in mind, here are 15 moments from the last 15 years that likely caused you to question their truthiness:
Sitting in the press box prior to a Flyers game, Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post stood up and announced, "Okay, we can all go home. No one's going to care about this game anymore."
And he was right. I don't even remember who the Flyers were playing that night. The Eagles had just agreed to terms with the Bills that would send their veteran running back to Buffalo in exchange for linebacker -- and former Oregon Duck -- Kiko Alonso. The move was shocking to say the least, and would have been more shocking had Shady not been floated out there as a potential trade chip if the Eagles wanted to make a legitimate push to move up in the draft to select Marcus Mariota.
Still, for the second straight season, the Eagles unloaded their most-explosive offensive player...and they were only getting started.
When the Eagles re-signed wideouts Jeremy Maclin, Riley Cooper and Jason Avant to contract extensions last offseason, my colleague Jimmy Kempski (we were both at philly.com then) wrote that their deals could spell the end for DeSean Jackson.
Initial reaction was disbelief, with some in the media even attacking his reporting.
DeSean Jackson rumors have little weight. Not usually into refuting rumors but the madness had to be stopped: http://t.co/i2j3nIbDsE
— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) March 5, 2014
Size has absolutely zero to do w/ any reason why the #Eagles would consider shopping DeSean Jackson, which they most certainly aren't.
— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) March 14, 2014
Then, two weeks later, it suddenly appeared that the Eagles were trying to move on from Jackson. Funny how that happens.
Either way, the city -- and football world for that matter -- was shocked when the Eagles actually announced they released the wideout without getting anything in return.
It probably wasn't all that shocking that Laviolette was fired, however the timing of his dismissal -- just three games into a season -- was curious to say the least. This year, the Flyers started 0-4, one game worse than they did under Laviolette.
I guess they wanted to give new coach Craig Berube a chance to screw it up for himself, something he may have done by not only apparently losing the locker room, but also mishandling Steve Mason, which lead to the firing of goalie coach Jeff Reese.
Who saw this one coming? Aside from GM whisperer Adrian Wojnarowski, everyone was shocked when the Sixers traded point guard Jrue Holiday, who was coming off the first all-star season of his young career. Even more shocking was what Sam Hinkie was able to get in return, Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel (coming off an ACL injury) and a first-round pick. The Sixers than used their own first-round pick, which wasn't part of the deal, to select Michael Carter-Williams, who would replace Holiday at the point and be named rookie of the year in the process. He would then be traded at the deadline during his sophomore season.
After telling the Eagles that he preferred to stay in the college ranks, it appeared that Chip Kelly was off the table as an option to replace Andy Reid as head coach. The team turned its focus to Gus Bradley, who ultimately landed in Jacksonville, but that attention was quickly shifted back to the West coast when Kelly had a change of heart and decided he wanted to make the jump to the NFL.
After going 10-6 in each of his first two season, including a playoff birth the year after inheriting a 4-12 team, I wonder if it's still looking like the worst hire in NFL history?
We'll know a lot more after these next two season now that Chip has full control over at NovaCare.
These next three moments are those ones that I talked about earlier. They seem too good to be true, but they aren't. Unfortunately, you're left wishing they had been a joke all along.
For years, fans had been clamoring for the Sixers to get Andre Iguodala out* of town. And finally they did so, by trading him to the Denver Nuggets as part of a four-team megadeal that brought Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia and sent Dwight Howard from Orlando to Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, Andrew Bynum would never play a game for the Sixers and the team has been rebuilding ever since.
Within an hour of each other, the Phillies and Eagles both made national headlines by landing two big-name players, one through free agency and one via trade.
For the Eagles, it was star cornerback and the prize of 2011 free agency, Nnamdi Asomugha. He was, needless to say, a disappointment for the Eagles.
For the Phillies, it was the acquisition of Hunter Pence, who, while productive in Philly, never brought a championship, cost far too much in terms of prospects and yielded little in return when the Phillies traded him to San Francisco.
On the day of the 2011 NHL trade deadline, the Flyers made a flurry of moves, including trading two of their best players, captain Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, in exchange for some players that have proven to be the core of their current team, like Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek and Brayden Schenn.
That was also the day they acquired a cosmonaut named Ilya Bryzgalov.
Shock factor: 9.7 (it was humungous big day)
Cliff Lee was going to sign with the Yankees. Or the Rangers. Or somewhere. Just not Philly. We were starting to accept that. Starting to move on. We still had Roy Halladay after all.
But then there was all this talk of a #MysteryTeam being involved in the negotiations. And as it turned out, that team was the Phillies, who were able to lure Lee away from the bright lights of New York, despite offering less money. He picked us!
I remember where I was when the news broke that Lee had decided to sign with the Phillies. I was driving along Tookany Creek Parkway in Cheltenham when my former colleague Jonathan Tannenwald called me. It was late at night, and I was on the way home from my girlfriends house. I told Jon this, and he said in a voice so calm that it could only precede something as shocking as what he was about to tell me.
“You might want to pull over,” he said, and so I did. “The Phillies just signed Cliff Lee.”
Good thing I pulled over. Otherwise we would have been fishing my car out of the creek.
Shock factor: 9.999999
It was the eve of baseball’s Opening Day, back in a time when that was still cause for excitement in this city. The Phillies were coming off their second World Series appearance in as many years, this one a loss to the Yankees, and unlike the years that preceded (and followed) this brief window, football was dominating headlines in early April.
But that all changed this Easter Sunday, when the Eagles traded their franchise quarterback — yes, I can call him that because he was that — Donovan McNabb to the Redskins.
It had become increasingly evident that his days were numbered in Philly, but a trade of this magnitude is always shocking, especially because they dealt him within the division. Leave it to the Eagles to drop one of the biggest transactions in team history on us at dinner time on Easter. And the Phillies season started within the next 18 hours.
Well played, Eagles.
Shock factor: 9.6
During a day that left even the most baseball-savvy among us with a headache, the Phillies figured out a series of trades that would result in the acquisition of Cy Young pitcher Roy Halladay from Toronto. Unfortunately, it would cost the Phillies another Cy Young winner in Cliff Lee, who was dealt to the Mariners.
It all worked out, however, as the Phillies re-signed Lee almost exactly one year later to help form one of the most formidable rotations -- Halladay, Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt -- in the history of the game. That 2010 season would prove to be the beginning of the end, rather than the beginning of a dynasty as many fans had hoped.
I was at a bar in Northeast Philly playing shuffleboard and watching the Eagles play a preseason game when I got a text that read, "The Michael Vick Experience is coming to Philly."
I laughed and showed it to my buddy, but then I realized it wasn't a joke. The Eagles had actually signed Vick after he spent 23 months in federal prison for dog fighting. Needless to say, nobody at the bar knew what to think as word quickly spread that Vick was an Eagle. It's honestly the most blindsided I've ever been by a transaction.
Shock factor: 10
It was a shocking day for the Flyers, as Hall of Famer and Flyers legend Boobby Clarke resigned his post as GM and coach Ken Hitchcock was fired. The move gave way to Paul Holmgren as GM and John Stevens as coach, which eventually gave way to Peter Laviolette as coach, which gave way to Craig Berube and Ron Hextall as GM. Lots of moving parts, I know.
In fact, there's a pattern developing among the Flyers coaches.
Hitch lasted 254 games before he was fired. Stevens lasted 263 games, nine more than his predecessor. Laviolette lasted nine games longer than that, 272.
Berube is currently at 79 games coached. If my calculations are correct, his has 202 games left before he gets fired. Unless losing a goalie and the locker room is the equivalent of 200 games. Then his time may be running out.
Their time together may not have lasted long, but the marriage between Terrell Owens and the Eagles was like most union's involving a diva: fast, argumentative and costly.
There was plenty of magic. Like the honeymoon phase, when Owens opened the season with a monstrous three-touchdown performance against the Giants or the time he mocked Ray Lewis after scoring. But there were also dark times, like the trial separation, when Owens spent weeks in a hyperbaric chamber trying to heal the wounds caused by their relationship. Or their one chance at redemption in Jacksonville, which was ruined by a peeping Tom in a ratty old sweatshirt.
Needless to say, there could have been a blessed union between Owens and the Eagles, but it was not to be, and ended almost as strangely as it began.
Oh yeah, the Eagles also landed defensive end Jevon Kearse that offseason, making him the highest-paid defensive end in NFL history with an eight-year, $66 million contract.
"The Freak" failed to live up to his deal, recording just 22 sacks over his four seasons in Philly. After his first two years* as an Eagle, Kearse missed most of 2006 with an injury and played just 16 games combined in his final two seasons , recording seven sacks and forcing only one fumble.
Shock factor: 8.9
The Sixers started the season 10-0, and when the 2001 trade deadline hit, the Sixers were 41-14. They had the league's leading scorer, Allen Iverson, and were favorites to win the Eastern Conference. However, they would likely have to face Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and the Lakers in the Finals.
And they needed a big man. A really big man
So they went out and got Dikembe Mutumbo to play inside, parting with Theo Ratliff and Tony Kukoc in the process. And not even that was enough, as the Allen Iverson-led Sixers fell to the Lakers 4-1 in the finals.
So there you have it. A look at some of the moments that made you question whether or not it was indeed April Fools Day.
And who knows, the next one could happen later this month if the Eagles trade up to land Marcus Mariota. Just saying...
