The NFL is two weeks in, MLB has two weeks left and college football season is officially in full swing. So much happened in the past week that it’s hard to make sense of it all, so here are the takeaways from an action-packed week in sports.
Phillies
Hope is fading fast for the Phils. They battled out a split in a four-game home series with Atlanta, only to get swept by the Red Sox in a two-game set over the weekend.
They have 14 games left on the schedule, including a huge five-game series against Washington (playing a doubleheader on Tuesday to make up a rain-out earlier in the season), but would probably have to win at least 10 of those games, and all against the Nationals to have any shot at getting into the wildcard game.
On top of that, writer Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, a major sporting news outlet, has reported that general manager John Middleton is quite displeased with the performance of manager Gabe Kapler. His time in a Phillies uniform might be drawing to a close.
Eagles
Last week I predicted the Eagles would beat the Falcons 27-24 in Atlanta and came painfully close to nailing that pick as Nelson Agholor dropped a wide-open pass down the sideline in the final minutes. So close, yet so far.
In all reality, the Eagles almost pulled off a brilliant comeback, leading 20-17 late when Atlanta’s Julio Jones broke off a 54-yard catch and run for the winning score. There is absolutely no shame in the loss, though.
DeSean Jackson was out with a groin injury, Alshon Jeffery left with a calf injury and young tight end Dallas Goedert hurt his calf in pregame, leaving quarterback Carson Wentz with few reliable targets for most of the game. Despite all that, they still nearly pulled out the win.
Philly sports Twitter will also be the first to tell you that the Birds started 1-1 in 2017. How did that season end again?
Penn State
The Nittany Lions nearly suffered a costly letdown against Pitt on Saturday, holding on for a 17-10 win at home in what will be the last meeting between the two teams for the foreseeable future.
QB Sean Clifford struggled, completing less than half of his passes for 222 yards and was held without a touchdown. The running game had trouble finding their footing as well, amassing 167 yards on the ground with more than half of that coming on Journey Brown’s 85 yard scamper to set up the game’s first score.
They’ll have to play better than that if they want to contend for the Big 10 this year, but have time to work out the kinks while on bye this weekend.
Temple
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to put the Owls in here this season. Then they knocked off no. 21 Maryland 20-17 on Saturday and forced my hand.
Obviously, they have a lot of work to do to get into the top 25 and, frankly, keep my attention, but that was a good start. They held a Maryland team who put up 63 points on a then-ranked Syracuse team a week ago under 350 yards of total offense (that’s not much in case you didn’t know) so clearly they’re doing something right.
They host a power-5 opponent, but only barely, in Georgia Tech on Sep. 28 and perennial College Football Playoff nuisance Central Florida on Oct. 26 so they could very possibly make some noise this year. Or they could lose all three of the conference games they play between those two.
It’s Temple so there’s no way to know until after the fact.
