Happy Festivus! It's time for the airing of Philly Sports grievances

When I told site editor Tim Kelly that I wanted to do a post here at OnPattison that was an airing of Philadelphia sports grievances because today is "Festivus," he rolled his eyes.

"Your generation, with the Seinfeld references... " he said, trailing off in disgust. 

My initial response was, "Hey, Tim, you knew what the Festivus reference was, so that means this one does cross generational lines!"

But as I sit here writing it, I realized that this dovetails nicely into my first grievance — today's generation of sports fan has a far greater disdain for sports of the past than ever before. 

Sure, I used to make fun of my father's generation for always saying things like, "Sports were much better in my day," but at least my sports-crazed friends and I always had an appreciation for the history of the sports we watched. 

It was probably because we didn't have a 24-hour news cycle and access to whatever content we wanted at our fingertips like today, so we had to rely on reading books for information, and sports heroes of the past were glorified in great detail in those books.

We weren't a generation that saw 1,000 words and immediately dismissed it as TL;DR. 

I remember my mother buying me a book called The World Series, a Complete Pictorial History. She knew nothing about baseball, but it had Gary Maddox on the front cover in his powder blue Phillies uniform taking an at bat in the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals, and she figured I'd like it because of the Phillies connection. 

I read the book cover to cover dozens of times. And yes, it had a lot of pictures, but it also had a detailed summary of each World Series, including every box score of every World Series game played between 1903 and 1980. 

There was a time in my youth where I could recite, in order, every World Series, who won, in how many games, and who the World Series MVP was, even before the award was handed out (I would pick my own based on the studying of the history of the series.)

And it wasn't that I was trying to memorize this information, it was just a fascination I had with the stories about baseball, how they were told, and how the players, managers, executives, and yes, at the time, the media, were all such great characters in the theatre of the sport. 

That's why we never poo-pooed the past. It's what made the sports what they are today. 

That appreciation is lacking. It's almost like if it didn't happen in the past 30 years, it didn't exist, or it should be dismissed. 

I'm not a fool. I know athletes evolve and that they are better at what they do today than ever before. But I'm also able to put that aside and look at the eras separately and have no problem accepting that players of a specific era were great at what they did and paved the way for the players of today — even if the sports, themselves, have changed. 

It's far easier to play quarterback and wide receiver now than it was 35-40 years ago. Doesn't mean they aren't better athletes today. They are. Just the rules are different and in their favor. 

Ditto the NBA and the NHL, where the rules changed over time to make offense easier. 

Two things can be true. There could be an appreciation for the past with the greatness of those players accepted with a defined context, along with an understanding of what makes athletes today so special. 

The same goes for Seinfeld. It was, at it's time, the best sitcom ever made. And I'm someone who adored sitcoms from before I was born — like the Honeymooners and All in the Family, and who grew up in the 1980s with M.A.S.H. and Cheers.

Sitcoms today move with far more alacrity. They have an even wittier banter. Some are brilliant. But they all have a history with roots that date back to Seinfeld. 

Tim throwing cold water on that, burns me up — just like today's generation of sports fan dismissing athletes of the past. 

I think that's part of the reason why trophy culture exists today far more than it ever did before — the lack of appreciation for what it takes, and all the failures that must be endured, before a championship can be attained.

It doesn't come easy. What is easy is the trophy culture. It's also easy to be someone who crows about being right when they say a team isn't going to win, and then it doesn't. 

It takes a lot of chutzpah to make that sort of prediction. (Now it's me, not Tim, doing the eye-rolling).

Because only one team wins every year, there are often 30-or-so teams who don't. We used to appreciate good seasons, even if they ended in disappointment or heartbreak. 

When the Flyers lost the Stanley Cup in 1987 in Game 7 in Edmonton, a swarm of fans showed up at the airport to welcome them home and thank them for a great season. Don't believe me? Look: 

Imagine that today. 

If you can't, I'm not surprised, because now, that's not acceptable. The fan mentality has changed to "win at all costs, or blow it up, and then tank until you get the next wave of stars, and try again."

That ideology "irks my soul," as my wife likes to say when she's annoyed by someone.

Which is another grievance this year. And while it's not specific to Philly sports, it's roots are here. 

The NBA is looking at rules to put in place to curb tanking. 

Of course, the league created this monster with the draft lottery and then such strict salary cap and transactional rules that there aren't many other ways to get good without hitting that lottery, or being extremely lucky. So, you reap what you sow. 

But the roots of this go back to the failed "Process" era and even last year — where the Sixers certainly tanked to try to ensure they didn't lose their pick to Oklahoma City via a previous trade because it had a lottery protection on it. 

They'll have to give up that pick in 2026 (unless they collapse and end up in the top-4 in the lottery), but by tanking it to the degree they did, it got them V.J. Edgecombe.

Tanking should be completely verboten and severely punished. Teams not trying to win are a scourge on the concept of competition. Yes, rebuilding requires some pain, but the pain shouldn't be intentionally induced.

Rather than figuring out ways to stop that with crazy new draft pick protection and lottery rules, why not fix the salary system to make movement of players a little easier. 

Or would that require owners to spend more money? Can't have that now, can we?

Another grievance this year is the fickleness of Eagles nation. Two weeks ago, when they lost three in a row, the masses were ready to make crazy changes. Some were calling for Jalen Hurts to be replaced. Kevin Patullo's house was getting egged. Nick Siranni's job was being called into question (hey, that was me).

Two weeks later, after beating the worst team in football in the Las Vegas Raiders and one that's not much better in the Washington Commanders, everyone is back on board. 

Why? 

Look good against two dreadful teams and suddenly all your problems have gone away?

The Eagles are almost definitely going to be the No. 3 seed. And in doing that, they almost definitely are going to be playing a team from the NFC West in the first round. 

Nobody has talked about the San Francisco 49ers much this year, but they control their own destiny. Win their last two games, and they end up leapfrogging the entirety of the NFC into the No. 1 seed, meaning either the Rams or Seahawks falls to No. 6 and comes East to play the Eagles.

Those two teams are the consensus top-two teams in all the NFL power rankings. It would be just like the Phillies matching up with the Dodgers in the first round. 

That's not good. 

Can the Eagles beat those teams? Sure. They're good enough defensively to be in every game and possibly win any game. But, man, either is a brutal first-round matchup for a defending champ. 

And if the Niners lose one of those games, it's probably San Fran, which isn't a walk in the park either, although they've gone on a heater here because of their weaker schedule. 

So, that matchup, while still challenging, isn't as daunting as L.A. or Seattle.

Regardless, I'm not sure I'd be all puffy-chested about the Birds right now. It's kind of grating to hear people be that way, actually. 

Finally, my last grievance is one I've aired plenty already, but I would be remiss if I didn't air it on this Festivus (for the rest of us). 

The Flyers woke up this morning in second place in the Metropolitan Division. They have the sixth-best points percentage in the entire NHL. 

They are certainly playing the role of the unexpectedly good team.

Might they drop off? They might. But right now, they are ahead of a lot of of other teams. 

And yet, most fans seem to be mad about things because I think that's what they've grown accustomed to being after being so bad and so irrelevant for so long. 

Well, they need to get past that. A corner is being turned. 

They're not there yet. This is still a team with flaws, lacking elite talent at the three most important positions, and has depth concerns — I'm not sure they could withstand another top-6 forward injury long-term. 

But man, they're fun. They're competitive. They're resilient. And they just might be better than most people want to give them credit for being.

My Christmas wish is fans stop getting caught up in the fervor created by miserable cranks on social media who are always just miserable cranks on social media who just so happen to platform themselves. 

There's like two dozen of them and I'm convinced they have some sort of bat signal they send each other whenever it's time to create a new controversy or complaint. 

Just enjoy hockey. You haven't been able to do that here for quite some time. If you do, you just might like it again. 

And if you can't do that ... if you'd rather be chronically pissed off at everything ... Then I'm going to say, in the immortal words of Frank Costanza, "I got a lot of problems with you people."

Happy Festivus! (And all the other holidays that are taking place over the next nine days.)