Nick Sirianni should be Coach of the Year in the NFL.
John Tortorella should be Coach of the Year in the NHL.
Nick Nurse should be Coach of the Year in the NBA.
Jim Curtin is the sitting MLS Coach of the Year.
All right, it’s early, even in an NFL season with 41 percent of the games still to play. At that level, all coaches are one losing streak away from a plane dragging a banner demanding that so-and-so must go. But on a weekend set aside for the purpose, Philadelphia sports fans should be thankful for such a rare convergence of coaching wisdom on Pattison Ave., west of Broad.
Not that Doc Rivers didn’t win games, but Nurse has bettered the locker-room atmosphere, defensive commitment and ball-movement to set the Sixers on an early pace to win 63 games.
Not that the Flyers are ready to inspire the placement of tin-foil Stanley Cups on every lawn in the region, but Tortorella has taken less than two years to rid his roster of players otherwise assumed to be special while pushing his club close to the front of the Metro division race.
Sirianni wins all the time and, with a victory in Kansas City, has shown his team is championship-ready.
Curtin has done more with less for 10 years than any other coach in his league and in modern Philadelphia sports history.
A title from one of them would not be rejected. But that takes a little luck. All that has been proven recently, though, is that Philadelphia has assembled enough sports brainiacs to preserve that hope.
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You get the lion up on his hind legs featured in every family crest?
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Unless the NFL forgets why it exists, the tush-push will become illegal by next season.
Nothing against the Eagles, who have run it to near-perfection for two years, but the short-yardage endeavor has robbed fans of a genuine football treat: A tense, evenly matched, fourth-and-inches defensive stand.
If the rule is not changed, every coach will find a way to run the play as successfully as the Eagles. It’s just how natural selection works in sports. But the NFL – and all pro and high-level college sports – exists to provide entertaining suspense. Once that begins to be chipped away, there is less reason to charge admission.
Free the goal-line stand.
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John Middleton this week invested $172,000,000 in a 30-year-old 12-9 pitcher with a 4.46 ERA who just surrendered 32 home runs in 32 starts and has a history of fading late in seasons.
Aaron Nola is a good teammate with strikeout stuff who would not be out of place in any championship-level rotation. So good for him – and good for Phillies fans – that ownership will overspend for a pitcher inching closer to No.3 status than to re-establishing himself as an ace.
• Mere days after the Phillies were ousted from the NLCS because Rob Thomson wouldn’t budge from his agenda, Johan Rojas was essentially demoted to the bush leagues and Craig Kimbrel was effectively told to schedule an Uber.
That’s the same Rojas who Thomson refused to pinch-hit for in Game 7, and the same Kimbrel he insisted on using in late-season, high-leverage situations to disastrous results.
In related news, Thomson will be allowed to wander into the 2024 season on an expiring contract.
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If you have to promote yourself in the process, giving away Thanksgiving turkeys is not an act of generosity. It is an over-played publicity stunt.
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Head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended for three games after the Big Ten ended an investigation into an alleged University of Michigan football signal-stealing scheme.
But no matter what allegations strike certain college sports programs, the boosters will demand more. That is, whatever Michigan – for instance – is accused of doing, 107,601 will show up at the next game, buy overpriced swag and make fun of the losing team that didn’t steal any signs.
The only way bad deportment will end is if it proves to be humiliating, not worthy of celebration. As if.
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If there is no traffic around the airport on a holiday travel weekend, that’s a story. TV stations have it backwards.
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As the uncomfortable front man for a weird rebuilding endeavor, former 76ers coach Brett Brown routinely promised that by the time Ben Simmons was 26, he would be a useful distance shooter. Simmons is 27 and had not attempted a three-pointer all season through last weekend.
Time’s up.
Shot clock violation.
• If the Sixers are better this season – and they are – it is largely because Daryl Morey was able to rid his roster of a certain player early in the season. Now, P.J. Tucker – you were thinking someone else? – is averaging less than two points a game in Los Angeles.
• And how long before someone points out that one team scored 124 points in the paint and the other had 120 in an NBA game on one of those colorized in-season tournament courts?
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Charging shoppers for a bag to carry home the items they just purchased … I don’t get it.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@delcotimes.com
