Philly’s Ridiculously Eventful (Mostly Bad) Sports Day

Er, I guess. A lot of stuff went down yesterday, and none of it involved the teams who are currently awful — the Sixers, who we all know are awful, and the Flyers, who are awful until proven otherwise — so let’s do a couple of recaps.

• As you may have read yesterday, the Eagles released Jeremiah Trotter, the four-time Pro Bowler who once anchored the defense — and helped the Eagles make Super Bowl 39. (Roman numerals are stupider than the metric system.) Although Trotter is only 30, his knees are about 55. Trotter is looking to head for another team, though he had a somewhat weird, emotional goodbye to the Eagles. The defensive players were kind of upset. Trotter will probably head to the Denver Broncos, following Allen Iverson, as all of Philadelphia’s most popular players will head to higher altitude. I was so unsure of how to finish this I stole the previous joke from my mom. (All Jeremiah Trotter references for the rest of this year will be accompanied by references to my mom, most likely.)

• Omar Gaither will be the one replacing the Axeman. He got a call from Trotter Monday night: “The first thing he said was, ‘Congratulations.’ He explained everything to me. That means the world to me. That’s the first thing you should know about me. There’s no bad blood between us. The fact that he came out today and did what he did shows that he has my back, which helps me as far as my teammates are concerned. He told me he’d be praying for me, and I really appreciate it.” Dammit, now I’m going to miss Jeremiah Trotter even more, personality-wise, at least. Moves like this, though, make me appreciate the Eagles management — if Trotter were a Phillie he’d be here ’til 2015 at least.

Some Fightins stuff follows.

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Eagles Shake Up Roster

Per 610 WIP and about 45 emails and gchats bouncing back and forth, the Eagles have released middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter.

To use a chain of sports cliches, Trotter has lost a step, doesn’t take it one game at a time anymore, doesn’t give it 110 percent anymore — he only gives 108 — and also might have been involved in dogfighting or horsefighting or something. Also, the new starter, presumably Omar Gaither, has a tremendous upside. Eagles coach Andy Reid will no doubt say he released Trotter now so he could catch on with another team.

It’s a shame, since Trotter is a really good guy and my mom’s favorite Eagle, which means she’ll be calling me complaining every time Gaither makes a mistake. On the plus side, now he can work at his car wash in Jersey full time.

Unrelated update: I was reading Pro Football Prospectus the other day and came across this great line:

Spikes’s arrival ended the Eagles career of Dhancin’ Dhani Jones. Jones was a true Renaissance man. Unfortunately, they didn’t play football during the Renaissance. Jones now works as an advance man for Al Gore. If he does for the environment what he did for the Eagles defense, we’ll all be underwater in 10 years.

Related update ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli says Takeo Spikes will play middle linebacker.