Why The Eagles Will Win The Super Bowl

Every sports fan has a conspiracy theory about his favorite sport. Juiced baseballs. Collegiate referees betting on games and making a killing. Forced steroid injections.

A lot of these theories are bunk, but this one is true: The NFL is rigged. It’s the only major sport that uses radios. Referees have a lot of leeway about what calls to make. People gamble a lot of money on it. Come on, last year’s Super Bowl? No way Eli Manning leads a game-winning drive to beat the 18-0 Patriots. No way.

Now that I’ve given you this mountain of circumstantial evidence (and not even, really), I hope you’ve come to agree. But don’t fret! It’s like pro wrestling: The actors have a lot of leeway, and it’s still pretty fun to watch. And there’s an added bonus: Since the NFL is rigged, this football season has only one logical conclusion.

The Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the Super Bowl.

Think about it: There isn’t a much better story than Andy Reid and the once-benched Donovan McNabb rallying the Eagles to finally win the big one. Even if it’s not the NFL has to be worried about this city embracing the Phillies after winning the World Series. (The NFL saw only two football moments on that 100 years of Phillymag piece and was totally concerned.)

I hope the NFL doesn’t mind my suggestion here for a way to end the regular season. If things fall as they might, the Eagles and Cowboys’ final regular season game could be a “play-in” game for the playoffs. The Eagles would be 9-5-1; Dallas 9-6. The game goes to overtime. Nobody can move the ball… and the game can end with Donovan McNabb kneeling out for the tie that puts the Birds at 9-5-2 and puts them into the playoffs.

The rest is easy: Beating up on a bad division champ in the wild card round, beating the Giants at the Meadowlands again in the divisional round, et cetera. Now that I’ve mentioned it, doesn’t it all just seem to fall into place?

Cataldi’s Predictions As Right As Ever

Remember during football season, when Angelo Cataldi was all “A.J. Feeley is a better quarterback than Donovan McNabb” in his Metro column? It was so stupid I didn’t even blog about it. Well, it turns out Cataldi’s predictions aren’t just bunk for football.

From his Kerri-Lee TV American Idol blog, posted a few hours before last night’s show:

I really don’t need to see the final show to know who has won. How it came about during the intense last round of competition was fascinating, though. By all appearances, David Cook tanked the final night. He handed the title to David Archuleta[.]

As you may have heard somewhere possibly maybe, David Cook won American Idol in a rout.